Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Bloomberg Markets Americas 20170216

Its inflation and employment goals, and the central bank is headed for its expected policy path. More from that exclusive interview with the Federal Reserve vice chair. As we have been reporting, donald trump is to hold a News Conference in a little bit. He told us earlier on in is near its inflation and employment goals, and the central bank is aaded for its listening meeting with congressional leaders that he would have a press conference from 12 00, and a press release from the white house came out and said there will be a News Conference at 12 30. Is ostensibly to name his new labor secretary picked up right lets bring in senior Bloomberg White house correspondent. Margaret, we have some names. Nbc is reporting that Alexander Acosta is going to be the pick. Margaret thats right. That is reported by mbc as well and we are all working to confirm this, the short list you mentioned. , as well as joseph guzman, a reporter and Catherine Templeton from the South Carolina labor department. Theres a lot of interest about replacemente and will be. For President Trump the stakes are also very high, to show he can respond quickly to crisis, and to get everybody to stop talking about general flynn and russia. That probably will not be the sentiment with this announcement and to get everybody to stop talking about general flynn and russia. Exactly. Very close too be president s day. Number three, to try to get back on track and show hes able to fill his cabinet. And we have paul ryan saying earlier on that we will get around to the Affordable Care revision and repeal or whatever they will do after president s day. People leave washington, d. C. For the week. Back to the labor secretary potential pick. We could not get anybody more different than labor leaders all of the 4 you mention, one is a professor of labor and michigan state, former labor union people. We could not get where people on an opposite end of the spectrum than andrew puzder. Margaret thats right, and this appears to be an aboutface to President Trump. We know hes going to South Carolina tomorrow to boeing, where there was just a victory in that other camp. We know that so far he is attempting in his own office at the white house, very much direct policy through his senior policy advisor. Yet to be determined with any of these cabinet posts. Pentagon, perhaps the and state department for a minute. Its likely that very much of his policy will be set by the white house anyway. In terms of positioning, President Trump and his top aides seem to want this issue of minimum wage or what a nominees President Trump and his top is about workers author plate and move on to the policy they want to impose, but also to these larger issues like the tax overhaul they want to come out with. This does appear, in any case, to be an effort to dispense of all the controversy. I do want to get back to these particular picks for labor secretary. We do think from the report from nbc news that it will be Alexander Acosta. I want to ask you about the chaos in the last few days. This will be President Trumps first solo News Conference all week, and we have had a meeting with the canadian Prime Minister, weve had also is of issues to do with russia, and a in thetalk about chaos white house, and that the president cant get anything done. How will he field these questions . Margaret we are all waiting to find out just what this in the white house, and that the president cant get anything means. They did push the start time back by about 1 2 hour from what President Trump originally envisioned, and part of that was to make sure the reporters and cameras could get in place. But its not clear at this point that there will be questions taken. If there are not questions taken, and the press briefing has just been canceled for the day, than these many questions surrounding general flynn, the National Security council, the administration or Campaign Contact with russia these all remain and they really must be addressed by the president directly in the incoming days. Vonnie margaret, dont go anywhere. I hope you have a warm coat on. We will be coming back to you before that News Conference. The president is you to speak at 12 30 eastern. We will be bringing you all of that life when it happens. We are halfway into the trading day now. Julie hyman is joining us with the latest. Julie we are seeing stocks pulling back. President trump saying this morning there hasnt been that much coverage of the records reached in stocks. Obviously he hasnt been watching bloomberg television, because we have been covering it quite a bit. Pulling back a bit after that string of records we have seen for all three major averages, as we get now well above the average for price to earnings ratio. Investors taking a bit of a pause after the recent rally that we have seen, so all three major averages are lowered to some extent. If you dig into on the imap what groups are on the move here, we some of the sort is more cyclical groups that have been gaining in recent days, now falling back. Energy lower with oil prices, financials down as we are now seeing a bit of a pullback in bond yields as well. And those Interest Rates, sensitive groups that have been hurt in recent days as the 10year has been rising, are flipping over to your stealing the real estate, Telecom Shares at her on the rise, but not enough to offset the rising those larger cyclical groups. I want to take a look at some of the retailers. There has been considerable negative sentiment surrounding the Retail Industry recently, with some of the numbers that have been coming up, and we have negative commentary coming out to various Media Outlets and analysts today. Nordstroms, kohls, jcpenney feeling the heat from that. They are trading lower, along with other economically sensitive groups. One extension to this is catesby. Kate spade. Importantly, saying its board is reviewing strategic alternatives. This is something that Bloomberg News as well as other media reports have stated. Now the company is sort of more firmly confirming it, saying Perella Weinberg is asking for a Financial Advisor here. Didhe same time, kate spade say sales rose by nearly 10 , although that was just short of analysts estiamtes. Estimates. Shares of 11 . Up 11 . Vonnie lets check in on the bloomberg first word news. Mark crumpton is in our newsroom. Has warneddent trump at what he calls a life leaders will be caught. He tweeted out the warning after news reports about contacts between his president ial campaign and russia. The president also said the New York Times and others must apologize. Its the highest level facetoface contact between the u. S. And russia since President Trump took office. Secretary of state Rex Tillerson with his russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov today in germany. Later secretary tillerson spoke about the relationship with moscow. Where we do not see eye to eye, the United States will stand up for the interest and values of america, and her allies. As we search for new Common Ground we expect russia to honor its commitment to the minsk agreements and work two deescalate the violence in the ukraine. Asmark secretary tillerson is n germany for the group of 20 conference. Foreign minister lavrov said the two did not discuss economic sanctions. U. S. Defense secretary james mattis said his message to nato on burden sharing was well received. The alliance wrapped up a twoday meeting in brussels. Mattis once nato to adopt a plan this year that would set milestone dates for member nations to meet their defense spending commitments. Malaysia has arrested 2 more people in the murder of the halfbrother of the north korean dictator kim jongun. Authorities arrested a malaysian man said to be the boyfriend of the second suspect. Police say the man provided information that led to the arrest of a woman carrying an indonesian passport. South korean officials are said to believe the man was poisoned with either a needle or a spray. Global news 24 hours a day, powered by more than 2600 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. I am mark crumpton. This is bloomberg. Vonnie thanks a lot. Im staying with President Trump s impact of financial markets. With the mixed signals coming out of washington, traders seem to be shrugging it off to the dow and s p 500 seeing five consecutive records at the close, majors today just slightly off their highs. A bloomberg stocks reporter joins us now. The confidence measures, the soft data and some of the hard data. Soar highernuing to and higher. Yet nothing actually happens yet. Is there a reckoning coming . Thats really interesting. Risa lastn the vix couple of days. Normally it goes the opposite direction of the s p. Signals that people are thinking, maybe i need to hedge my gains a bit, maybe need to get ahead of a possible reckoning, even though the stock market is continuing to climb, that is trouble for some people. A lot was made yesterday about the move up in the s p 500 being sort of an unwind of a short ball position that a hedge fund had made, that kind of suffered when the vix spiked. In a weird way, the high vix is helping the stock market rise even further. Its an interesting dynamic there. People remain confident in trumps policies, even though nothing has happened yet. The possibility of repatriation, taxes being lowered, and Infrastructure Spending increasing, those are things raising most industries in the s p 500 over the last couple of months. Vonnie its really very illustrative, soaring. Two confidence measures at their highest level since 2004. The Small Business index already wasnt doing too badly. We mention consumer confidence. Look at the huge increase there in Small Business optimism. This is the hope that regulation or tax reform or something is going to come in . Signals i think that that people are willing to look past the turmoil that trump is creating. Maybe the geopolitical uncertainties being overruled by what a lot of people view as more important, at least in the shortterm, the strength of Economic Data. That is one data point there. We are seeing inflation grow quickly. Chinese data has been coming in at the highest level since 2011. You have measures of optimism that bank of america, Fund Managers surveyed that optimism is highest for investors since 2011. You name it, basically everything on an economic basis is going right. And you also can kind of see that with how people are responding to what janet yellen is saying. Vonnie exactly. And things are getting back towards their goals. Steve ratner was on this morning, saying we are due for a pullback. We had been due for one in months now. Also, the answer is joe morning, saying we are due a pullback. We had its probably a point tht his party will take in this point, because one of the size of a market top is overconfidence. All these things sort of at these multiyear highs, you might reach that conclusion that exuberance is getting overextended. However, its not like the market just goes down because of that. There has to be some external shock, some sort of external surprise it catches people off guard. We wont see a big plunge from these highs unless theres a direct catalyst. As indicated by the rising vix, people are starting to hedge, maybe gain a little uncertainty. Vonnie you say rising vix, but we are just barely above days, if you two look at the price chart the last two days, its a nice ride. Were still quite low. Interesting bifurcation between that and other asset classes. Havent really track to the currencies, bonds, treasuries, and the like. For that reason, people think another reason why we could see a reckoning and stocks, how they will be able to reconcile that policies,rump reflationary stuff, as well as Economic Data is anyones guess at this point, which is why there are some a disconnect in the global markets. Vonnie its hard to know what a catalyst will be. Theres always something out there, i guess. Joe, thank you for that. At me right now, but you are looking at a live shot of the east room at the white house where President Trump will give a News Conference. That is scheduled for 12 30 eastern according to a White House Press release. He says he will give his nominee for the next labor secretary position. Much more ahead on bloomberg markets. This is bloomberg. Vonnie this is bloomberg markets. Im vonnie quinn. Is going donald trump to give us a News Conference and about 15 minutes or so. That is when it is planned by the white house. We will bring you those comments live. We will get his new pic for labor secretary. We will also, im sure, here some comments about the confirmation of Mick Mulvaney as omb director. Lets get to the vice chair of the Federal Reserve, stanley fischer, who gave an exclusive interview today. He echoed chair yellens congressional testimony this week. In december, the fed put projections at three rate increase this year. Tom keene sat down with fischer in an exclusive. Have a listen. It was very complicated when the inflation rate was negative, and very low. Inflationtarget of 2 , and we are heading in that direction. Its not making life more complicated at the moment. Very high inflation, which we will do what we have to to prevent, could complicate the situation. But we are not there by any means. Tom how do you define high inflation . I look at dennis lockhart, who will join us on bloomberg later today, the atlanta fed numbers sticky, inflation, the dallas inflation, the cleveland inflation. What does the number, the statistic begin to suggest high inflation . Chair fischer our target is 2 . Obviously you dont hear that exactly, you hope to be very close to. We are as worried of being below as being above. It is something which if you are very close to 2 , its not a problem. If it is significantly worried g below as being above. Above, you begin to worry. And you begin to act. Tom part of our relationship over the years at davos and other important meetings has been, i really dont talk to you about the parlor game power game. I believe there is a march 15 meeting. Changegoldman sachs their probabilities of what the fed will do. Not specifically what will you do at the march meeting, but does this new inflation dynamic change the cadence of 2 or 3 rate increases as we go through the end of the year . Chair fischer i dont want to but you numbers on 2 or 3, this is consistent with what we have thought should be happening around now. That is, if we will be moving closer to the 2 inflation rate, and that the labor market would continue to strengthen. If those two things happen, we will be on the path that we more or less expected. Tom so important is the idea of moving through the year, for your fed. As im sure youre aware, washington is in turmoil. My colleague was talking to me yesterday about how the fed acts differently as you go to yearend. This yearend of 2017 i would suggest is different from any other yearend you have seen. Maybe you will leave. Maybe chair yellen will leave. Is there a political mix to the pressures you face in meetings later this year . We really do not make political decisions. We take into account what is happening in the economy, what people think about, and what weht happen to policy, but are not going to make our decisions on the basis of what pressures you will get him politically. We have targets. We are aiming to get the targets. Tom are we still ultraaccommodative . Are we still in the land of ultraaccommodative . Chair fischer we are in the land of accommodative. Im not sure about ultra. Tom i would love to see if our speech i love your mathematics. The having a productivity. We cut our productivity growth in half. That is the core issue. Is it about technology . Is it about automation . Can you give us the efficiency of an economy . What is the why of our having . Therefischer worldwide, is a slowdown in measured productivity. There are some people who argue, and they have a basis for their arguments, that the data become less and less appropriate as the economy moves to being more and moreof service more and economy. We have a very small manufacturing sector. In terms of employment, we are producing roughly the same share of gdp in manufacturing that we did 20 years ago. But, the number of workers there is down because they have become more productive. Vonnie that was part of tom keeness close of the fed vice chair, stan fischer. You are looking at a live shot of the east room in the white house, where President Trump is going to give a News Conference shortly. Hes expected to nominate Alexander Acosta as his pick for labor secretary. We will of course be bringing you those comments live. This is bloomberg. Vonnie youre looking at a live shot of the east the white house. President trump is going to give a News Conference there shortly. It is due to take laze around 12 30 eastern according to a White House Press release. He is said to be nominating alexander a cost as labor secretary. Our senior White House Correspondent margaret is with us. Two people familiar with the matter have confirmed Alexander Acosta will be the pick. Who is he and where does he come from . Is the dean. Acosta of the Florida International University Law school down in miami. He has a really interesting background. Lets go over it real quickly. Any years ago he did serve on the Labor Relations board under george bush. Brought on as the u. S. Attorney for that Southern District in florida, and as assistant attorney general, he had a lot to do with civil rights matters, among other issues, he has spoken out on the rights of muslims in the United States. This was back when he was an appellate judge. A rich history, much of which does not center around Labor Relations, although we believe he has many published opinions we will be taking a look at. He would be the first hispanic would alleviate some of the criticisms a President Trump not naming enough hispanics to cabinet positions. Vonnie florida native as well. Margaret, thank you. We will be back with you after that press conference, which we will find extremely interesting. We will take you live to that conference when it happens. Once again, former assistant attorney general Alexander Acosta is going to be nominated to the position of labor secretary by the president. In just a few minutes we will bring that conference when it happens. This is bloomberg. Ive spent my life planting a sizesix, nonslip shoe into that door. On this side, i want my customers to relax and enjoy themselves. But these days its phones before forks. They want wifi out here. But behind that door, i need a private connection for my business. Wifi pro from comcast business. Public wifi for your customers. Private wifi for your business. Strong and secure. Good for a door. And a network. Comcast business. Built for security. Built for business. You are looking at the live shot of the east room of the white house. It will be a News Conference shortly. He is said to be nominated nominating Alexander Acosta as his pick for labor secretary. Lets get a check of the majors. Trump saying the media does not report record highs. We have been reporting them, but we cannot today because they are off highs. The dow down about 70 points. The s p down five points and the nasdaq down 12 point. No Movement Since we got word of a new labor secretary. The 10year yield is at here is abigail doolittle. Abigail one reason these major averages in the u. S. Are off highs, we are looking at weakness for Consumer Staples including kraft heinz down more than 4 on pace for the worst day since november 2015. They actually beat earnings and revenue estimates, but investors do not like is that they indicated they are moving toward organic growth as opposed to seeking growth from an acquisition. Kind of ironic in a way. You would think it would be a positive thing and investors would like that. They are expecting an acquisition of possibly Monfils Mondelez and general mills. Big drag on the index today is looking at financials. We have banks lower including jpmorgan, bank of america, wells fargo, and citigroup. A lot of this a lot of this has to do with the drop in yield. The are facing fines in rigging probe. The bigger move here is that the fact the fact the 10year yield is down for the first time in a few the days. We take a look at a chart and in blue we have the 10year yield. In white we have the s p 500 bank index going back about four or five months and we see the tight correlation, especially out of the election on reflation trade hopes. We see a little bit of the virgins we see a little bit of divergence. It is worth noting this is a momentum indicator for investors. It shot up above 70 and is now dropping down. It could signal some more bearish activity ahead and could suggest the bank index could pull back down and perhaps we could see the 10year yield continue to drop. Vonnie it did breach 250 earlier in the week. We are going to be bringing you a News Conference in a few minutes. Here is the live shot of the east room in the white house where President Trump will be nominating Alexander Acosta to the position of labor secretary according to people familiar with the choice. This is because andy puzder withdrew his name amid controversy over his private sector background. You couldnt get any more thanrent to andy putz or Alexander Acosta. Talkssteve feinberg is in with the white house about various National Security jobs. According to a white house official, he might lead a review and potential overhaul of the u. S. Intelligence community. The New York Times says officials are concerned a review could curtail their independence. The Senate Judiciary committee will begin confirmation hearings on neil gorsuch march 20 according to Committee Chairman chuck grassley. Neil gorsuch was selected by President Trump to feel the vacancy fill the vacancy left by Justice Antonin Scalias death. Republicans refused to consider president obamas nominee, eric garland. A car bomb is up to the death from a car bomb is up to 45. Targeted say the it car dealerships. The Extremist Group has carried out near daily attacks despite military setbacks elsewhere in the country. Foreign ministers from the group of 20 leading industrialized and offging economies kicked talks. The key focuses global development. Germany wants to keep momentum going on 17 sustainability goals recognizing and preventing future crisis as well as support for africa are also on the agenda. Global news 24 hours a day, powered by more 2600 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. I am mark crumpton. This is bloomberg. Vonnie thank you for that. You are looking now at a live shot of the east room of the white house. President trump is going to get a News Conference shortly. He said he is going to be talking about the next labor secretary. Alexander acosta is going to be that choice. Lets head over to margaret talev. When you read about Alexander Acosta you wonder how he was missed in the first place. He has Labor Relations ties, he is hispanic, and he is from florida. Margaret one thing that is really important and i cannot underscore this and off, Alexander Acosta has been confirmed three times by the senate. If you are President Trump, you are looking for someone who can withstand and ideally breathe through the nomination process in terms of his tenure on the board and his jobs for the Justice Department. Hispanic and would be the first hispanic nominee to President Trumps cabinet and that may ease his confirmation and gives President Trump what he has not had up until now. Those are really important points. I want to mention two other things about mr. Acosta. One is that he is a harvard undergraduate and harvard law. Those looking for President Trump to really reach into less ivy league than more the midwest, ohio, or wisconsin schools, he is now laying down a record to going back to many of these same institutions other president s draw from. The other is mr. Acosta shares a Community One of the Largest Community banks in the United States and the largest in florida. His white house bio from the time he was appointed by president bush to serve as assistant attorney general to Civil Rights Department what do we know about his positions when it comes to conditions in the Current Labor Force and things like minimum wage and the current arguments among labor leaders and Business Leaders . Margaret now that we know who the nominee is expected to be, everyone will be turning to what he champions himself on his University Homepage biography. Again, most of his recent ir graffiti deals much more biography deals with much more legal issues. In the Justice Department he focused among other issues not just florida crime, but whitecollar crime and corruption cases. All of that will come into play. Dating back to the Bush Administration, there is a record that will become part of the hearings and the confirmation process. Sayie is it too easy to that he is prolabor . Are there conflicting issues there . The we know whether he is 100 behind labor or whether he has a different viewpoint on certain issues . Margaret President Trump and the top advisers have chosen a nominee they believe can reflect enough of President Trumps worldview that he can become double with. They met yesterday at the white house. A lot of this will play out in the days to come. He certainly represents certainly optics and to some extent, a departure away from udzersitzer mr. P nomination. This all moved quickly. One of the job candidate we were told was expected to have her interview on friday that would be tomorrow, so this was very quick moving. This is someone President Trump was comfortable with and the advisors like and someone who foots the bill of someone they believe can be confirmed and carry out policies visavis labor that are important to the Trump Administration. Vonnie two in extent, we do not dzers viewsdy put wouldve been. I think we can say they wouldve been different than the views acosta would be championing. Margaret we know Many Republican members in the senate were not comfortable both with some of his policy and things, but also the public rhetoric that accompanied those, which is important when you are talking about workers and that of course some of the personal divorce related elements. As the hearings moved closer, there were a number of senators signaling, please dont make us go through with this, it will not be good for your nominee. Vonnie will this be a 100 almost a bipartisan supported nominee, d you think . Margaret i think the Trump Administration would want to have that if they could and they have some chance of that, but trategiccrats s position is that they probably cannot defeat any nominees, but they will come out swinging. This is a difficult decision for democrats who are trying to get their heads around it. It is more likely this nominee would find support among democrats. Vonnie is there some reason it had to be today . We also had announcement of the omb director. Is impossible to overstate how much of people politically of people upheaval politically has gone on over the course of the last several days. There are two categories to Pay Attention to. One is the relationship between Vice President mike pence and the inner circle of the president and his advisers at the very house and important republican allies and leadership President Trump counts on. When those element are weakened by developments on that story, it becomes a problem and has created a tremendous aval. T of uphe President Trump has not wanted to answer questions other than to say that general flynn was treated unfairly. He would like to use this to change the subject and change the narrative to something successful and something people will applaud. Not just in terms of the nominee, but the whole situation where he can say i had what could have been a crisis it quickly and that is how i do things around here. If that can become the narrative around here, in the case of this now unfolding potential for Russian Investigations in congress and a search for a replacement for general flynn. Vonnie i want to bring up the paul ryan press conference. He mentioned the members of congress were going to be looking at the changing of Affordable Care act. I am not sure whether this is repair or repeal or replace or what the r word is this time. Does that mean all of next week, because they are going on vacation . Right, that isis the congressional break and the other is the expectation that President Trump will make an address at the end of the month. I think they would like to have some of the elements at least planned out by then so they can package it together. The third element is what President Trump himself has suggested that it could take more than a year for this could to happen. I think republicans are certainly trying to dial that back and say they will act immediately and decisively. There are still questions about how this will work and how long it will take. Vonnie among cabinet members, the labor secretary is extremely important if not the most important secretary in the sense that he can only influence the of the the health labor market to a certain extent and that is usually on jobs day. Is appointed, he would have a pretty easy job, would you say . Margaret i dont think anyone will have an easy job of the first four weeks of this administration is any clue. As President Trump tweeted this morning, the market is certainly performing well. President obama actually left those numbers and you can slice and dice the employment numbers anyway you want, but they were fairly low. It will be difficult for this president to maintain pace with that. You dont know what will happen. I will say this is certainly an important job that hasnt been scrutinized the same way the secretary of state has been or the treasury secretary. This is going to be an important job policy wise and perhaps even more important politically as President Trump tries to recast the signals he is sending americans about what his cabinet looks like and what they stand for. Vonnie do we know if he was popular with unions . But have aclu leader, we seen if unions were happy with this sort of thing . Margaret we are working quickly to try to flesh out his biography. I think there are two things to look at in terms of unions. One is that President Trump leaves tomorrow for South Carolina to visit the boeing plant that is sort of an ouded in enshr unionrelated politics and acosta will have a chance to the folks in florida who know this man. Vonnie take a break for a tiny second. Thank you for all of that. We want to go over to capitol hill now and speak to kevin cirilli. Will this go down well with the Hispanic Community given the first few weeks hasnt been all that kind in the trumpet ministration to the Hispanic Community . Kevin him being one of the first hispanic members of President Trumps cabinet and administration, sending a signal that he is willing to work with that community. I would also note this is something who is an establishment pick. This is something that hold held positions within the Bush Administration and defended Muslim Americans during capitol hill testimony and i am sure the white house and other republicans will look to resurface. He said that Muslim American rights must be protected. This is also someone the white house hopes will not have as ercky as a road as mr. Puzd had. Look in the coming days to see how orchestrated and neck or an effort there is to get this confirmation. Vonnie who would have brought this name to the president . Has it been floating around the hill and if so, why did it take so long for him to be considered . Kevin his name has been listed for quite some time. He was on the short list originally and i think that perhaps we will have to wait and see but perhaps the white house was looking for a more safe pick. We will have to wait to see what President Trump says when he gets behind the podium in just a few short minutes what exactly he presents this to be. If he present him as a more establishment pick, a more safe pick, because i think that would help lead him to get the key vote in the senate like senator tim scott who had no comments. He said he is waiting to review. These key senators who broke away, they need them in order to get across the finish line. Vonnie there were at least 12 who said they were not going to support the previous puz der. You almost wonder if he wasnt a decoy pick. Yesterday with Benjamin Netanyahu he managed to walk away from the question on flynn and the whole russia situation. Will he do that again today . Kevin who knows if he will walk away, but he will face since about russia and general flynn who just the other day he stood by, he defended despite press Secretary Sean Spicer saying President Trump asked for general flynns resignation. There is a ton of talk that perhaps bob hardwood could potentially be the replacement to the general flynn. Address handle an and address the accusations that have donned this white house in its infancy . How to see address the questions and the accusations that his Previous Campaign iterations had a direct contact with russian officials . I spoke with Paul Manafort who denied vehemently any allegations that he spoke to anyone connected with russia. How does this president address those concerns and ease concerns on capitol hill where House Speaker paul ryan said he wants to tackle things like tax reform and repealing parts of the Affordable Care act. Do these stories and these questions that surround him hurt him in getting across the finish line with congress . Vonnie this story now the labor secretary pick and the new pic errt of puts to bed the puzd story. After a couple of hours, i am sure the limelight will turn back to the russia question and all of these on answered questions. It is all very well to replace a nominee, but we have these other positions to fill in the nsa and other things we do not have answers to. Kevin i can tell you that tomorrow President Trump will head to charleston, South Carolina will where he will tour a boeing plant and look to make an economic announcement and after that he will head to florida and have another campaignstyle event. He is looking at what will be his first president ial rally since being inaugurated, trying to turn the page on this series of controversies that have him this weekend last week. Vonnie they wont go away. The press will travel with him on that campaigntype stop and even next him this weekend last week, Congress Might not be around they might be in their home districts, but the president cannot turn away from the news cycle. When do you think we will get more answers about exactly what is going on with all of this Defense Department business . Kevin House Speaker paul ryan earlier today suggesting that after that week long recess they are waiting to see how the Budget Office scores the Affordable Care. That was one of the key killers of President Trump on the campaign trail. To get back to russia and the questions surrounding him this week, secretary tillerson overseas right now meeting with his russian counterpart at the g20 summit, facing more questions about the Previous Campaign relationship and communications. An event tillerson has in mexico. Already the global check board is in match and how President Trump is able or not able to turn the page and settle an answer these questions could have direct impact to his congressional relationship and also impact his economic agenda. People like gary cohn ability to address and execute his economic agenda. Vonnie there were reports out here as well that even just a few hours before he was meeting with the israeli Prime Minister, mike pompeo was meeting in the palestinian territory. It is very hard to know if things are as they should be in the administration and whether this is all planned or just happening because it is a little bit of chaos right now. We are waiting for the president to speak. He is to hold a News Conference. He said it would be around 12 00 and the white house had a statement saying it may be around 12 30. He is to give us his new secretary of labor nominee. According to two surface sources, we know that will be Alexander Acosta. Let me go back to you at the white house and ask for your impression about how much we will have to see ors white house staff up differently within the next couple of months before the february 28 mark, at which point the president really needs to be settled. Toket margaret he needs get a budget director and it will be important for him to come forward with his proposal or work with Congressional Republicans on joint proposals. If you look at the National Security council where this drama has been unfolding, now the search for a replacement. That replacement in and of itself does not fix everything. There are still a number of positions to be filled out and entirely possible more people would leave or more people would come in method that is bob hardwood or someone else. There is that basket and there is a tremendous amount of infighting and throughout the agencies there is still a lot of work to be done at state to fill out the tree of deputies and assistants. To be fully up and running, a tremendous amount of work left. Vonnie let me come back to you, kevin, and more of the comments the president made this morning. Congress seemed to be happy to be in the presence of donald trump. He also said there would be a big planned announcement. You said he is going to carolina. Are we going to hear this in carolina tomorrow where he gets his rallytype speech . Kevin what i think is interesting about his meeting with congressional lawmakers this morning was that those lawmakers were some of the first, if not the first public and in congress to endorse then candidate trump. This came when there were questions about the relationship he had with congressional lawmakers. People that were at this meeting include representative Chris Collins upstate new york as well as people like representative mike kelly, a republican from pennsylvania. All of these folks are people who are more of the conservative rising star members of congress. It comes at a time vonnie i am going to jump in because the president of the United States is taking the stage. President trump i wanted to then by mentioning that nominee for secretary of the department of labor will be mr. Alex acosta. He has a law degree from harvard law school. Former clerk for Justice Samuel alito and he has had a tremendous career. He is a member and has been a member of the national Labor Relations board and has been through Senate Confirmation three times, confirmed. Alex, i well and so, wished him the best. We just spoke and i think he will be a tremendous secretary , as you and also probably heard it just a little while ago, Mick Mulvaney, a former congressman has been approved weeks late i have to late, office of management and budget and he will be a fantastic addition. Paul singer just left, he was very much involved with the antitrump or as they say never trump and paul just left and gave us his total support. Is it is all about unification. We are unifying the party and hopefully we can unify the country. It is very important to me. I have been talking about that for a long time. I want to thank paul singer for being here and coming up to the office. He was a very shrunk opponent strong opponent and now he is a strong ally. Beenis time, we have negotiating a lot of different transactions to save money on contracts that were terrible, including airplane contracts that were out of control and late and terrible. Absolutely catastrophic in terms of what was happening and we had done some really good work. We are really proud of that. Right after that, you prepare yourselves, we will do questions. Unless you have no questions. I am here to update the American People on the incredible progress that has made that has been made since my inauguration. I do not think there has ever been a president elected in this short period of time who has done what he has done. Becausessen poll the people get it, the media does not get it. It came out a little while ago and it has our Approval Rating at 55 in going up. The stock market has hit record numbers and there has been a tremendous surge of optimism in the business world, which means Something Different to me than it used to. It means it is good for jobs. Plants and factories are already starting to move back into the. Nited states ford, general motors, so many of them. I am making this presentation directly to the American People with the media present. This morning, because many of our nations reporters and folks will not tell you the truth and will not treat the wonderful people of our country with the respect they deserve and i hope, going forward, we can be a little bit different and maybe get along a little better if that is possible. Maybe it is not. That is ok, too. Unfortunately, most of the media in washington, d. C. And new york and los angeles speaks not for the people, but for the special interests and for those profiting off a very, very obviously brokenthe press has bo dishonest that we dont talk about it. We are doing a tremendous disservice to the American People, tremendous disservice. We have to talk about it to find out what is going on. The press, honestly, is out of control. The level of dishonesty is out of control. I ran for president represent the citizens of our country. Im here to change the broken system so it serves their families and communities well. I am talking and really talking on this very entrenched power structure and when we are doing is we are talking about the power structure, we are talking about its entrenchment, as a result, the media is going through what they have to go distorttoo often times not all the time and some of the media is fantastic. Honest and fantastic. Much of it is not. The distortion. You will be able to ask me questions about it. But we are not going to let it happen. I am here again to take my message straight to the people. Administrationr inherited many problems across government and across the economy. Mess honest, i inherited a , it is a mess. Miss md abroad, a ess. Jobs are pouring out of the country, you see what is going on with all the companies leaving our country, going to mexico and other places. Lope, low wages. Mass instability overseas, no matter where you look. The middle east, a disaster. North korea. We are going to take care of it all. I just want to let you know. I inherited a mess. Our administration on day one went to work to tackle these challenges. On foreign affairs, we have already begun enormously productive talks with many foreign leaders, much of it you have covered, to move forward toward stability, security, and peace in the most troubled regions of the world, which there are many. We have had great conversations with the United Kingdom and mexico, japan,l, china, and canada, really, really productive conversations. I would say far more productive than you would understand. We have even developed a new counsel with canada to promote womens Business Leaders and entrepreneurs, very important to me, very important to my daughter ivanka. I have directed our Defense Community headed by our great tis,ral, now secretary mat he is over there working hard now, to submit a plan for the defeat of isis, a group that celebrates the murder and torture of innocent people in large sections of the world, used to be a small group, now in large sections of the world. They have spread like cancer. Cancer. Spread like another mess i inherited. We have imposed a new sanctions on a nation of iran who is totally taking advantage of our previous administration. And they are the worlds top sponsor of terrorism. And we are not going to stop until the problem is properly solved, and it is not properly solved in now. One of the worst agreements i have ever seen drawn by anybody. Toave ordered plans to begin rebuilding the massive United States military. Had great support from the senate, i have had great support from congress, generally. We have pursued this rebuilding in the hopes that we will never have to use this military. I would betell you, so happy if we never had to use it. But our country will never have had a military like the military we are about to build and rebuild. We have the greatest people on earth in our military but they dont have the right equipment, and their equipment is old. I used it, i talked about it at. Very stop, depleted it is depleted or not be depleted for long. I think one of the reasons that im standing here instead of other people is that, frankly, i talked about we have to have a strong military, we need strong Law Enforcement also. So we do not go abroad into search of war. We are really searching for peace, but it is peace through strength. At home, we have begun the Monumental Task of returning the Government Back to the people on a scale not seen in many years. In each of these actions im keeping my promises to the American People. These are campaign promises. People are so surprise we are having strong borders. That is what ive been talking about for year and a half. They are so surprised. He is having strong borders. That is what i have been talking about to the press and everybody else. One promise after another, after years of politicians lying to to to get elected, they lie the American People in order to get elected. Some of the things im doing probably are not popular but they are necessary for security and other reason. Then coming to washington and pursuing their own interests, which is more important to many politicians. I am here following through on what i pledged to do. Thats all im doing. I put it out before the American People, got 306 Electoral College votes, was not supposed to get 222. They said there is no way to get 222. 230 is impossible. 270, which is what you need, is laughable. We got 306 because people came out and voted like they have never seen before. That is the way it goes. I guess it was the biggest Electoral College win since ronald reagan. Words, the media is trying to attack our administration because they know we are following through on pledges that we made, and they are not happy about it, for what ever reason. But a lot of people are happy about it. In fact, i will be in melbourne, florida 5 00 saturday, and i just heard that the crowds are massive that want to be there. On the tv, open the newspapers, and i see stories of chaos, chaos. Yet, it is the exact opposite. This administration is running like a finetuned machine, despite the fact that i cannot get my cabinet approved, and they are outstanding people, like senator dan coats, one of the most respected men in the senate. He cannot get approved. How do not approve him . Even brilliantd guy, great guy, Everybody Knows him. Waiting for approval. Wonderful group of people that is working very hard , that is being very much misrepresented about, and we cannot let that happen. , all you democrats have to do is look at where they are right now. The only thing they can do right now is delay, because they have screwed things up royally, believe me. Let me list you some of the things we have done in a short. Of time put two of time. I just got here, and. Actions is a promise i made to the American People. We will go over some of them, and we have a lot happening next ink and in the weeks coming we had withdrawn from the job killing disaster known as transpacific partnership. We are going to make trade deals, but we will have oneonone deals, bilateral. Oneonone deals. We have directed the elimination of regulations that undermine manufacturing and called for expedited approval of the andits needed for America American infrastructure, and that means plant, equipment, roads, bridges, factories. Tople take 10, 15, 20 years get approved for a factory. It is many, many years. At the end of the process they spend tens of millions of dollars on nonsense. At the end of the process, they get rejected. They may be rejected with me but it will be a quick rejection. Will not take years. But mostly it will be an acceptance. We want factories built. We want the jobs. We do not want the job going to other countries. We have imposed a hiring freeze on nonessential federal workers. We have imposed a temporary moratorium on new federal regulations. We have issued a Game Changing the rule that says for each one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated. Akes sense nobody has ever seen regulations like we have. You go to other countries and you look at industries they have and you say, let me see your regulations. And they are a tiny fraction of what we have. I want regulations because i want safety, i want environmental, all environmental situations to be taken properly care of, its very important to me. Or fivedont need four or six regulations to take care of the same thing. We have stood up for the men and women of Law Enforcement. Directing federal agencies to ensure they are protected from crimes of violence. We have directed the creation of a task force for reducing Violent Crime in america, including the horrendous situation take a look at chicago and others taking place right now in our inner cities. Horrible. Have ordered the department of Homeland Security and justice to coordinate on a plan to destroy criminal cartels coming into the United States with drugs. We are becoming a druginvested nation. Drugs are becoming cheaper than candy bars. And we are not going to let it happen any longer. We have undertaken the most substantial Border Security measures in a generation to keep our nation and our tax dollars safe. We are now in the process of beginning to build a promised wall on the southern border, now secretary kelly yesterday, and we are starting the process. ,he wall will be a great wall and it is going to be a wall negotiated by me, the price is going to come down, just like it has on Everything Else i have negotiated for the government. We are going to have a wall that works. It will not be like the one that is there now which is either nonexistent or a joke. We have ordered a crackdown on sanctuary cities they refused to comply with federal law and that harbor criminal aliens and we have ordered an end to the policy of catch and release on the border. No more release. The matter who you are. Release. We have begun a nationwide effort to remove criminal aliens, gang members, drug dealers, and others that pose a threat to public safety. We are saving american lives every single day. Court system has not made it easy for us. And are even creating a new office in Homeland Security dedicated to the forgotten american victims of a legal immigrant a legal immigrant violence, which there are many. We have taken Decisive Action to keep radical islamic terrorists out of our country. No parts are necessary and constitutional actions were blocked by judges, in my opinion, incorrect, and unsafe ruling. Our ministration is working night and day to keep you safe, including reporters, safe. And is vigorously defending this lawful order. I will not back down from defending our country. I got elected on defense of our country. I keep my campaign promises. Happytizens will be very when they see the results they already are, i can tell you that. Extreme that it will be put in place. It is already in place in many places. In fact, we had to go quicker than we thought because of the bad decision we received them a circuit that has been overturned at a record number. I have heard 80 . I find it hard to believe. That is just a number i heard. They are overturned 80 of the time. Chaosk that circuit is in. That circuit is, frankly, in turmoil. That. Are appealing and we are going further. We are issuing a new executive action next week that will comprehensively protect our country. We will be going along the one path man hopefully winning that at the same time we will be issuing a new and very to protectve border our people. That will be done sometime next week toward the beginning or middle at the latest part. We have also taken steps to begin construction of the Keystone Pipeline and Dakota Access pipelines, thousands and thousands of jobs, and put new to america measures in place require American Steel for american pipelines. In other words, they build a pipeline in this country and we use the powers of government to make that pipeline happen. We want them to use American Steel. To do that, willing but nobody ever asked before i came along. Even this order was drawn, they did not say that. I am reading the order, why arent we using American Steel . They said that is a good idea, we put it in. To drain the swamp of corruption in washington, d. C. , i have started by imposing a fiveyour lobbying ban on white house officials and a lifetime ban on lobbying for a foreign government. We have begun preparing to. Epeal and replace Obamacare Obamacare is a disaster, folks. It is a disaster. You can say, obamacare, they fill up our rallies with people that you wonder how they get there. They are not the Republican People that are representatives or representing. So we have begun preparing and replacing obamacare and are deep in the midst of negotiations on a very historic tax reform to bring our jobs back, to bring our jobs back to this country big league. It is already happening, but big league. I have also worked to install a cabinet over the delays and obstruction of senate democrats. You have seen what they have done over the last long number of years. That will be one of the great cabinets ever assembled in american history. You look at Rex Tillerson, out there negotiating right now, general mattis i mentioned before, general kelly. We have great, great people. Now. Is with us among their responsibilities will be attending the bleeding of jobs from our country and negotiating fair trade deals for our citizens. Look, fair trade. Not free. Fair. Is taking advantage of us, we are not going to let that happen anymore. Now every country takes advantage of us, almost. I may be able to find a couple that dont. For the most part, that would be a very tough job for me to do. Jobs have already started to search. Since my election, ford announced it would abandon its plan to build a new factory in mexico and will instead invest 700 million in michigan, creating many, many jobs. He announced it will invest 1 billion in ohio creating 2000 american jobs. They were with me a week ago. General motors likewise committed to invest billions of dollars in its American Manufacturing operations. Keeping many jobs here that were going to leave. If i did not get elected, believe me, they would have left. These jobs and these things im announcing would of never come here. Intel Just Announced it will move ahead with a new plant in arizona that probably was never going to move ahead with. And that will result in at least 10,000 american jobs. Walmart announced it will create 10,000 jobs in the night United States this year because of our various plans and initiatives. There will be many more, many more. These are a few we are naming. Other countries have been taking advantage of us for decades, decades and decades and decades, folks. And we are not going to let that happen anymore. Not going to let it happen. One more thing. I have kept my promise to the by nominating a justice of the United States Supreme Court, judge neil gorsuch, who is from my list of 20, and who will be a true defender of our laws and our constitution. Highly respected, should get the votes from the democrats. , but henot see that will get there, one way or the other. But he should get there the oldfashioned way. And he should get those votes. Month has represented an unprecedented degree of action on behalf of the great citizens of our country. Again, i say it, there has never been a presidency that has done so much in such a short period of time. And we have not even started the big work that starts early next week. Very big things are going to be announced next week. So we are just getting started. We will be giving a speech, as i said, in melbourne, florida at 5 00. I hope to see you there. And with that, i just say, god bless america. Lets take some questions. Maura, go ahead. You were cut off pretty violently at our last News Conference. [inaudible] mike flynn is a fine person. I asked for his resignation. He respectfully gave it. There was a certain amount of information given to Vice President pence who is with us today, and i was not happy with the way that information was given. He did not have to do that because what he did wasnt wrong , what he did in terms of the information he saw. What was wrong was the way that other people, including yourselves in this room, were giving that information. Because that was classified information that was given illegally. That is the real problem. You can talk all you want about news, which is all fake fabricated deal, to try to make up for the loss of the democrats , and the press plays right into it. I saw a couple people that were supposedly involved with all of this. They know nothing about it. They were not in russia. They never made a phone call to russia, never received a phone call. It is all fake news. The nice thing is, i see it starting to turn where people are now looking at the illegal very important the ille gal giving out classified information. And let me just tell you, it was given out like so much. I will give you an example. I called, as you know, mexico. It was a very confidential, classified call. I called mexico. Calling mexico, i figured, i had a good call. All of a sudden, it is out there for the world to see. It is supposed to be secret. It is supposed to be either confidential or classified. Same thing with australia. All of a sudden, people are finding out exactly what took place. The same thing happened with respect to general plan fl ynn. The first thing i thought of when i heard this is, how does the press get this information . That is classified. You know why . It is an illegal process and the press should be ashamed of themselves. More importantly, the people that gate on the information to the press should be ashamed of themselves. Really ashamed. [inaudible] because when itrump looked at the information, i said i didnt think he did anything wrong. He was come into office, he looked at the information. He said, that is fine, that is what they are supposed to do. He didnt just call russia. 30somethere were countries. He was just doing his job. The thing is, he did not tell our Vice President properly, and then he said he didnt remember. So either way, it was not very satisfactory to me. And i have somebody that i think will be outstanding for the position, and that also helps, i think, in the making of my decision. But he didnt tell the Vice President of the United States and that he didnt remember. That was just not acceptable to me. Yes . [inaudible] from your team communicate with the russian government or russian intelligence . [inaudible] the failing New York Times wrote a big store yesterday. It was very much discredited, as you know. It is a joke. The people mentioned the story, i noticed they were on television today saying they never spoke to russia. Really, they were such a minor part, i have not spoken to them. I dont think i have ever spoken to him. I dont think i have ever met him. He said he was a very lowlevel member, i think a committee, for a short period of time. I dont think i ever met him. It is possible i walked into the room and he was sitting there. I didnt talk to him ever. He thought it was a joke. The other person said he never spoke to russia, never received a call. Look at his phone records. They knew heson, represented verys countries but i dont think he represented russia, but knew that he represented various countries. People know that. That is mr. Manna for, manafort, who by the way, is a respected man. I think he represented ukraine government. Everybody knows that. And he said that he has absolutely nothing to do and never has with russia. He said that very forcefully. I saw his statement. Most of the papers do not print it because it is not good for their stories. The three people they talk about , all totally deny it. I can tell you, speaking for myself, i own nothing in russia. I have no loans in russia. I dont have any deals in russia. President putin called me up very nicely to congratulate me on the win of the election. He then called me up extremely nicely to congratulate me on the inauguration, which was terrific. But so did many other leaders. Almost all other leaders from almost all other countries. Russia is fake news. This is fake news put on by the media. The real news is the fact that people probably from the Obama Administration because they are there, because we have our new people going in place right now, as you know, mike pompeo is now. Aking control of the cia james comey at fbi. Dan caotes is waiting to be approved. He is a highly respected senator and he is still waiting to be approved. Our new people are going in. Just while youre at it, because you mention this, wall street journal did a story today that was almost as disgraceful as the failing new yorks times story yesterday and it talked about you saw frontpage. Director of National Intelligence just put out, acting, a statement. Any suggestion that the United States Intelligence Community this was just given to us is withholding information and not providing the best possible intelligence to the president and his National Security team is not true. So they took this front story out of the wall street journal, top, and they just wrote the story that is not true. I will tell you something, ill be honest. Because i sort of enjoyed his backandforth. I have never seen more Dishonest Media then frankly the political media. I thought the Financial Media was much more honest. I will say, i never get phone calls from the media. How do they write a story like that without asking me . How do they write a story in the New York Times, put it on the front page . It is like the story they wrote about the women and me. Frontpage, big, massive story. It was nasty. Then they called and said we never said that, we like mr. Trump. They called it my office. We never said that. We like mr. Trump. They totally misrepresented iose very wonderful women, have to tell you. Totally misrepresented. I said, give us never traction. They never gave us a retraction. Then i frankly one of two other things. Ok. Go ahead. Are you ok . [inaudible] President Trump well, im talking about republican. [inaudible] President Trump i was just given that information, i dont know. We had a really big margin. [inaudible] well, i dontp know. I was given that information. Actually, i have seen that information around. It was a very substantial victory, do you agree with that . Yes. Can you tell us, in determining the tenant general flynn, there was no wrongdoing in your mind. [inaudible] can we ask what you are going to do . [inaudible] President Trump first of all about that, we now have dan soon, mikeefully pompeo, james comey, and they are in position. I hope we can straighten that out without using anyone else. Mentioned is a very talented man, very successful. He offered his services. It is something we may take advantage of but i dont think we will need that at all because of the fact that i think we will be able to straighten it out very easily on its own. As far as the general is concerned, when i first heard , that does said, ha not sound wrong. My counsel, white House Counsel came. He told me, and i asked him, and he can speak well for himself. He said he doesnt think anything is wrong. He really didnt think it was really what happened after that. I didnt either. I waited for a period of time and i started to think about it. To me, he was doing the job. ,he information was provided by who i dont know, sally yates. I was surprised because i said this doesnt sound like you did anything wrong. But he did something wrong with respect to the Vice President. I thought that was not acceptable. As far as as far as the , in fact,ing the call i have watched various programs and i have read various articles where he was just doing his job. That was very normal. First, everybody got excited because they thought he did something wrong. After they thought about it, it turns out he was just doing his job. All thate way, with being said, i do think he is a fine man. Finish off, and then i will get you. [inaudible] President Trump we are looking at it very seriously. I have gone to all of the folks in charge of the various agencies and i have actually called the Justice Department to look into the leaks. Those are criminal leaks. They are put on by people either in agencies i think you will see it stopping because now we have our people in. We dont have our people and because they cannot get approved in the senate. We just had Jeff Sessions approved in justice, for example. We are looking into that very seriously, it is a criminal act. Out on mexico,ed i was shocked. All of this equipment, all of this incredible phone equipment. When i was called out on mexico, i was honestly very surprised. But i said, it doesnt make sense. That wont happen. But that wasnt that important a call. I could show it to the world, he could show it to the world, the president , who is a fine man, by the way. Same thing with australia. That is terrible that it was leaked, but it is not that important. But what happens when im dealing with the problem of north korea . What happens when im dealing with the problems in the middle east . Are you folks going to be reporting all of that very, very confidential information, very important, at the highest level, will you be reporting on that to . I dont want classified information getting out to the public. In a way, that was almost a test. So i am dealing with mexico, i am dealing with argentina. We were dealing with this case with mike flynn. All of this information gets put into the Washington Post and gets put into the New York Times and im saying, what will happen when im dealing on the middle east, what will happen when im dealing with really important subjects, like north korea . We have to stop it here that is why it is a criminal penalty. John . I just want you to clarify, can you say definitively that nobody on your campaign had any contacts with the russians during the campaign . And on the leaks, is it fake news, or are these real leaks . President trump the leaks are real, you are the one that reported on them. The leaks are real, you know what they said. The leaks are absolutely real. The news is fake because so much of the news is fake. The one thing that i felt it was very important to do, and i hope we can correct it. There is nobody i have more respect for maybe a little bit and reporters. Very important to me. Especially in this position. I dont mind bad stories. I can handle a bad story better than anybody. As long as it is true. Over the course of time i will make mistakes and you will write badly, and im ok with that. But im not ok when it is fake. I watch cnn, it is so much anger the hatredand just that i dont watch it anymore because it is very good. She is saying no. That is ok. Jim, you will have your chance. I watch others. You are not the only others. I think it would be frankly more interesting. I know had everybodys ratings are right now but i think it would actually be better. You have a lower Approval Rating congress. I think that is right. Is that one right . I think i heard lower than congress. Honestly, the public would appreciate it. I would appreciate it. Again, i dont mind bad stories when it is true. But we have an administration with democrats making it very difficult. I think we are setting a record, close to a record in a time of approval of a cabinet. The numbers are crazy. Some of them had been approved immediately viewed i am going forever. I still have a lot of people we are waiting for. That is all they are doing, delaying. You look at schumer and messi has over there, and they have nothing going. The only thing they can do is delay. I think they would be better served by approving and making sure that they are happy and everybody is good, and sometimes , i know president obama lost three or four. And you lose them on the way, and that is fine. But i think they would be much better served, john, if they just went through the process quickly. This is pure delay tactics. And they say it, and everybody understands it. Context, the contacts with the russians, can you definitively say President Trump i have nothing to do with russia. I told you, i dont know anything. Wikileaks, which i had nothing to do with, comes out and happens to get they are not giving cap classified information. A are giving what was said in an office about hillary cheating in the debates. Nobody mentions that. Nobody mentions that hillary received the questions to the debates. Seriously, can, you imagine if i received the questions . It would be the electric chair. Ok . He should be put in the electric chair. You would even call for their reinstitution of the death penalty. Maybe not you, john. Yes . [inaudible] President Trump no, i didnt. No, i didnt. Excuse me. Now, i fired him because of what he said to mike pence, very simple. Was doing his job, calling countries and his counterparts. It certainly would have been ok with me if you did it. I would have directed him to do it if i thought he wasnt doing it. I didnt direct him but i would have, because it is his job. It came out that way. In all fairness, i watched dr. Charles krauthammer the other night say he was doing his job. And i agreed with him. Since then, i have watched many other people say that. I did not direct him but i wouldve directed him if he didnt do it. Jim . [inaudible] President Trump ok, well ask jeff zucker how he got his job. If im a follow up on some of the questions here. President trump not too many. You have other people and youre readys are not as good as some of the others waiting. You said earlier that wikileaks was revealing information about the Hillary Clinton campaign during the election cycle. You welcome that at one point. You said you love wikileaks. At another Campaign Press conference, you called on the russians to find the missing 30,000 emails. Im wondering, sir President Trump she was actually missing 33 and that was extended. I did say 30 but it was actually higher. If i may ask you, it sounds like you dont have much credibility when it sounds to leaking if that is something you encouraged in the campaign. President trump let me do one at a time. In one case, you are talking about highly classified information. And the other case, you are talking about john podesta saying that things about the boss. If john podesta said that about me and he was working for me, i would have fired him so fast, your head would have spun. But it was not classified information. Regardless, if you look at the rnc, we had a very strong, at my suggestion, and i get reince credit for this. At my suggestion because i know something about this world. I said i want a very strong defensive mechanism. I dont want to be hacked. And we did that. You have seen that they tried to hack us, and they failed. He dnc did not do that if they did it, they could not have been hacked. Hacked and terrible things came in. The only thing that i think is unfair is some of the things, when i heard some of those things, i picked up the papers the next morning and said this would be front page. It was not even in the papers. Again, if i had that happen to me, it would be the biggest story in the history of publishing, newspapers. I wouldve been the headline in every newspaper. Think of it. They gave her the questions. She should have reported herself. Why didnt Hillary Clinton announce that im sorry, but i have been given the questions to a debate or a townhall, and i feel it is appropriate, and i want to turn in cnn for not doing a good job. That,i may follow up on you said that the leaks are real but the news is fake. I guess i dont understand, it seems there is a disconnect there. Information coming from those weeks is real, so how can the stories be fake . President trump you know what it is . They read, newspapers, they see television, they watch. They dont know if it is true or false because they are not involved. I am involved. I have been involved with the stuff all my life. But im involved. I know when you are telling the truth and when you are not. I just see many untruthful things. I tell you what else i see, tone. The tone is such a treat. I am really not a bad person, by the way. The tone is such i do get good ratings, you have to admit that. The tone is such a trade. I watched this morning a couple of the networks. I have to say, fox and friends in the morning, they are very honorable people. Not because they are good, because they hit me also when i do something wrong. But they have the most honest morning show. That is all i can say, the most honest. But the tone, if you look, the red, sometimes somebody you look at your show that goes on at 10 00 in the evening. You just take a look at that show. That is a constant hit. The panel is almost always exclusively antitrust. The good news is he does not have good ratings. But the panel is almost exclusive antitrump. The hatred and venom coming from his mouth, the hatred coming from other people on your network. I will say this, i watch it, i see it. I am amazed by it. Be a lotink you would better off. I honestly do. The public gets it. When i go to rallies, they start screaming at cnn, they want to throw their pockets at cnn. I think you would do much better at being different. Take a look at some of your shows the morning and evening. If a guest comes out and says something positive about me, it is brutal. They will take this News Conference. I am actually having a very good time. Dont forget, that is the way i want it. I used to give you a News Conference every time i gave a speech, which was every day. With newsw i won, conferences and speeches. Certainly i didnt win with people listening to you. Im having a good time. Tomorrow they will say, donald trump rants and raves at the press. I am just telling you, you are dishonest people. But im not ranting and raving. Im having a good time doing it. Tomorrow, the headlines will be, donald trump rants and raves im not ranting and raving. One more followup. President trump peter, should i have . Sit down. We will get it. Just because of the attack on fake news and attacking our net work. Network. President trump very fake news. Real news, mr. President. President trump and you are not related. I am not. I do like the sound of secretary of cost up. President trump i looked at that and thought, is there any relation . They said, no sir. Do me a favor, go back and check the family tree. Arent you concerned, sir, that you are undermined the people stayed in the first amendment, freedom of the press, when you call stories you do not like fake news . Why not just say it is star you do not like . When you call it big news, youre undermining confidence in our news media. President trump you are right about that. I know when i should get good and when i should get that. Sometimes i was say, wow, that is a great story, and i will get killed. I would be a pretty good reporter, not as good as you. I know what is good, i know what is bad. When they change it and make it really bad, something that should be positive, sometime something that should be positive, they will make ok. Even i know there what was said, i know who is saying it. I am there. It is very important to me. I want to see an honest press. When i started off saying it is so important to the public to get an honest press. The public does not believe you people anymore. Maybe i had something to do with that, i dont know. What they dont believe you. If you were straight, and really told it like it is, as Howard Cosell used to say, right . Of course, he has some questions also. But if you were straight, i would be your biggest fan in the world. Including bad stories about me. But if you go, as an example, cnn, it is story after story after story is bad. I won. I won. ,. The other thing, chaos. This is a finetuned machine. Doing aappens to be good job but half of his job is putting out lies by the press. I said to him yesterday, this whole russia scan you are building so that you dont talk about the real subject which is illegal leaks. I watched him yesterday working so hard to try and get that story proper, and im saying, here is my chief of staff, a won theood guy, he election, we won the presidency, we got some senators all over the country. He has done a good job. I said to myself, i said to somebody in the room, you look at reince, he is working so hard just putting out fires that are fake buyers, they are fake. They are not true. Isnt that a shame . He would rather be working on health care. He would rather be working on tax reform, jim. I would be your biggest fan in the world. I sort of understand there is a certain bias by jeff or maybe somebody, whatever reason. I understand that. But you have to be at least a little bit fair. That is how the public sees it. They see it is not fair. You take a look at some of your shows and you see the bias and the hatred, and the public is smart and they understand it. Ok, go ahead. [inaudible] is there anything you have learned over the last few weeks that you might be able to reveal that might ease our concern that this is not fake news . President trump i think the public does not believe it. That is why the rasmussen poll has me through the roof. They dont believe it. Well, i guess one of the reasons im here today is to tell you, the whole russian thing is a ruse. Ifthe way, it would be great we could get along with russia, just so you understand that. Tomorrow you will say, donald trump wants to get along with russia. This is terrible. This is not terrible to this is good. Hillary clinton try to do a reset. Hillary clinton gave russia 20 . F the uranium in our country you know uranium is, right . This thing called Nuclear Weapons and other things like lots of things have done with uranium, including some bad things. Nobody talks about that. I didnt do anything for russia. I have done nothing for russia. Hillary clinton gave 20 of our uranium. Reset, clinton did a rubber with that stupid plastic button that made us all look like a bunch of jerks . He looked at her like, what the hell is she doing with that cheap plastic button . That was a reset. Remember it said reset . If i do that, i am a bad guy. If we could get along with russia, that is a positive thing. We have a very talented man, Rex Tillerson, who will be meeting with them shortly. I know politically, it is probably not good for me. The greatest thing i could do is shoot that ship 30 miles offshore right out of the water. Everyone in the country would say, that is so great. That is not great. I would love to be able to get along with russia. Of president slot that have not taken that tact. Look at where we are now. Look at where we are now. Love to negotiate things, i do it really well, and all of that stuff, but it is possible i will not be able to get along with putin. Maybe it is. I want to tell you, the false reporting by the media, you people, the false, horrible, fake reporting makes it harder to make a deal with russia. , yourobably putin said know, he is sitting behind his desk, i see what is going on in the United States, they follow it closely. It will be impossible for President Trump to ever get along with russia because of all the pressure he has got with this fake story. Ok . And that is a shame. Because if we could get along with russia, and by the way, china and japan and everyone. If we could get along, it would be a positive thing, not a negative thing. Tax reforms will happen fairly quickly. We are doing obamacare. We should be submitting the initial plan in early march, i would say. We have to, as you know, statutorily, for reasons of budget, we have to go first. Frankly, attacked would be easier come in my opinion, but for statutory and budgetary reasons we have to submit the health care sooner. We will be submitting health care sometime in early march. After that, we will come up, and we are doing very well on tax reform. You mention russia, lets talk about some serious issues that you have a to deal with as president of the United States. You mentioned the spy vessel. There was a ballistic test that many interpreted as a violation between the two countries, and a russian plane buzzed the u. S. President trump not good. Excuse me, when did it happen . If you werewhen putin now, you would say, we are back to the old games with the United States. There is no way trump can ever do a do with us. You have to understand, if i was just brutal on russia right now, people would say, you would say, isnt that wonderful . I know you well enough. Then you would say he was too tough, he shouldnt have done that. All of those things that you mentioned are very recent. Because probably putin assumes he will not be able to make a deal with me because it is politically not popular for me to make a deal. So Hillary Clinton tries the reset, it fails. But i am different from those people. How are you interpreting those moves, what do you plan to do with them, are you getting Rex Tillerson any advice on how to deal . President trump i am so beautifully represented, honored that the senate represented approved him. He will be fantastic. Is proved in testing you, do you believe . President trump i dont think so. I think he probably assumes he cannot make a deal with me anymore because politically it would be unpopular for me to make a deal with a popular pop politician. It would be much easier for me to be tough on russia. I dont know that we are going to make a deal, i dont know. We might, we might not. It would be much easier for me to be tough. The tougher im, the better. But i want to do the right thing for the American People, and to be honest, secondarily, i want to do the right thing for the world. If russia and the United States actually got together and got areg, and dont forget, we a very powerful Nuclear Country, and so are they. There is no upside. We are a very powerful Nuclear Country, and so are they. I have been briefed. One thing i can tell you about a briefing that we are allowed to say because anybody that ever read the most basic book can say it. Nuclear holocaust would be like no other. They are very powerful Nuclear Country and so are we. If we have a Good Relationship with russia, believe me, that is a good thing, not a bad thing. When you say they are not good, i read of the three things. Do they damage the relationship . This countrys ability to work with russia . President trump they all happened recently and i understand what they are doing. Again, maybe i will not be able to do a deal with russia but at least i will have try. If i dont, does anybody really think that Hillary Clinton would be tougher on russia then donald trump . Is anybody in this room really believe that . Ok . She try to make a deal, she had the reset. She gave all that valuable uranium away. They say im close to russia. Away 20 ofton gave the uranium in the United States. She is close to russia. You know what i gave to russia . Nothing. Can we conclude there will be no response to these provocations . President trump i will not tell you about my military response. I will not say im going into mosul in four months. We are going to attack basel in one month. Next week, we are going to attack mosul. In the meantime, it is very difficult because i do not talk about military. I dont talk about certain other things. You will be surprised to hear that. By the way, my whole campaign i say that. I dont have to tell you. I dont want to be one of these guys that says, this is what we are going to do. I dont have to do that. I dont have to tell you what im going to do in north korea. Wait a minute. I dont have to tell you what im going to do in north korea. I dont have to tell you what im going to do with iran. You know why . Because they shouldnt know. Arelly you are voice going to get tired of asking the question. When you ask what im going to do with the russian ship, as an example . I will not tell you. Hopefully i will not have to do anything, but i will not tell you. I just ask you, thank you, mr. President. President trump where are you from . Bbc. President trump there is another beauty. A good line. Impartial, free, and fair. President trump just like cnn. On the travel ban, would you accept that that was a good example of the smooth running of government . President trump yes, i do. Wait. I know who you are. Just wait. Let me tell you about the travel ban and we had a very smooth rollout of the travel ban he would but we had a bad court. Bad decision. We had a court that have been overturned. I may be wrong, but maybe 80 of the time. On with the to keep decision, we are going to put in a new executive order next week sometime. But we had a bad decision. That is the only thing that was wrong with the travel ban. You had dealt with a massive problem with the Computer Systems at the airports. You have some people that were brought in by very nice buses, brought out to various locations. The only problem we had was a bad court. We had a court that gave us what i consider to be, with great respect, a very bad decision, for the safety and security of our country. The rollout was perfect. What i wanted to do was do the exact same executive order. I sent this to my people. Give them a onemonth period of time. But secretary kelly said if you do that, all of these people will come in in a month, the bad ones. You do agree there are bad people out there, not everybody is like you. There are some that people out there. So kelly said, you cannot do that. He was right. As soon as he said it, i thought, you are right. He said you have to do it immediately. If you do it immediately, they dont have time to come in. If i would have done it in a month, everything would have been perfect. The problem is, we would have wasted a lot of time and maybe a lot of lives because a lot about people wouldve come into our country. In the meantime, we are betting very strongly. Very very strongly. But we need help and we need help getting that executive order passed. It is so urgent, why not introduce i was hoping we could get a yes or no answer on one of these questions involving russia. Can you say whether you are aware whether anyone who advised your campaign had contacts with russia during the course of the election . President trump i told you general flynn was dealing, as he should have been. During the election . You are not aware of any content during the course of the election . Can you just say yes or no on it . President trump i know you have to ask a question. Russia is a ruse. Withe nothing to do russia. Have not made a phone call to russia in years, do not speak to people in russia. Not that i wouldnt, but i have nobody to speak to. I spoke to put him twice, he called me on the election and inauguration. Talk, a very good especially the second one even lasted for a pretty long period of time. I am sure you probably get it because it was classified so im sure everyone has it. But we had a very, very good talk. I have nothing to do with russia. To the best of my knowledge, no person does. Manafort has denied it. People knew he was a consultant in that part of the world for a while, but not russia. I think he represented ukraine, people having to do with ukraine, or whoever. Everybody knew that. In his capacity as your campaign manager, was he in touch with russian officials during the election . President trump he said no. Now, he was replaced long before the election, you know that, right . When all of this stuff started coming out, it came out during the election. Paul manafort, who is also a good man, was to be replaced, long before the election took place. He was only there for a short window of time. How much longer should we stay here, folks . Ok . More minutes, is that wait, lets see. I want to find a friendly reporter. Are you a friendly reporter . Reporter [indiscernible] what we are concerned about is [indiscernible] there are people that are committing acts President Trump he said he would ask a simple, easy question. It is not. It is not a fair question. Sit down, i understand the rest of your question. Least one, i am the antisomatic person you have ever seen in your entire life. Number two, racism. The least racist person. We did very well relative to other people running as a republican. Quiet, quiet. He lied about standing up and asking a straight, simple question. Welcome to the world of the media. Let me just tell you something. That i hate the charge. I find it repulsive. I hate even the question because people that know me, and you heard the Prime Minister, you heard them yesterday. Bibi. He said i have known donald trump for a long time. Then he said you should take that, instead of having to get up and ask a very insulting question. Go ahead. Reporter thank you. President trump shows you about the press. Reporter thank you, mr. President. On National Security and immigration, can you give us more details on the executive order you plan for next week . Even a broad outline . President trump a very fair question. Reporter on the dakka program for immigration, to you plan to continue that program or two and it . End it . President trump its a very difficult subject for me. It is one of the most difficult subjects i have. You have these incredible kids, in many cases, not all cases. And some of the cases they are gang members and drug dealers, too. You have some absolutely incredible kids. I would say mostly. They were brought here in such a way its a very tough subject. We have to deal with heart. I have to convince politicians what i am saying is right. I appreciate your understanding on that. The dakka situation is a very difficult thing for me. I love these kids. I love kids. I have kids and grandkids. I find it very, very hard doing what the law says exactly to do. The law is rough. Im talking the existing laws. It is very rough. It is very, very rough. As far as the new order, the new order is going to be very much tailored to what i consider to be a very bad decision. We can tailor the order that decision. We are tailoring it now to the decision. We have some of the best lawyers in the country working on it. The new executive order is being tailored to the decision we got down from the court. Ok. [indiscernible] she does a lot of great work for the country. Can you tell us what Melania Trump is doing for the country [indiscernible] what is that mean to you . President trump that is what i call a nice question. Who are you with . [indiscernible] President Trump i will start watching. Thank you very much. Last night ande we had dinner with senator rubio. We had a really good discussion about cuba, because we have similar views on cuba. Cuba was good to me in the florida election. The cuban people, the americans. I think that melania will be outstanding. She just opened up the visitor center. She, like others she is working with feel strongly about womens issues, womens difficulties. Very strongly. She is a very strong advocate. I think she is a great representative for this country. Of fighting happens because she gets so unfairly the thing s they say. She was a very successful person, the successful model. She did really well. She would go home at night and didnt even want to go out with people. She was a very private person. She was always the highest quality that you will ever find. And the things they say and i have known her for a long time the things they say are so unfair. They have apologized. I think she will be a fantastic first lady. She will be a tremendous representative of women and the people, and helping her and vanka, iter will be iba was a fabulous person and a fabulous woman. They are not doing this for money or pay. They do it because they feel it, both of them. Melania goes back and forth. After baron goes back to school, they will be moving over to the white house. Thank you. A very nice question. Go ahead. This will be of that question but thats ok. I enjoy watching you on television. Thank you so much. Youed to find out from you, said something that relates to inner cities. That was one of your platforms during your campaign. Fixing the inner cities. What will be that fix . And urban agenda, as well as your hbcu executive order coming out this afternoon . President trump that was very professional. We will be pronounced announcing the order in a little while. It will be something that i think will be very good for everybody concerned. You aboutlk to that after we do the announcement. I was very strong on the inner cities during the campaign. I think it is probably what got me a higher percentage of the africanamerican vote that a lot of people thought i was going to get. We did much higher than people thought i was going to get and i was honored by that. Including the hispanic vote which was much higher. Including the womens vote which was much higher than people thought i was going to get. We are going to be working hard on issues with education, having to do with crime. We will try and fix as quickly as possible it takes a long time. It has taken 100 years or more for some these places to evolve. They evolved many of the very badly. We will work very hard on health and health care. Very, very hard on education and also we will be working in a stringent way and a good way on crime. You go to some of these innercity places and it is so sad when you look at the crime. People, and i have seen this and witnessed it. In two cases i have witnessed it. They locked themselves into apartments petrified to even leave in the middle of the day. They are living in hell. We cant let that happen. It is a great question. It is a very difficult situation because it has been many years, it has been festering for many years. We have places in this country we have to fix. We have to help africanAmerican People that for the most part i stuck there. Hispanic American People. We have hispanic American People in the inner cities. They are living in hell. You look at the numbers in chicago. There are two chicagos, as you know. There is one chicago that is luxurious and safe. There is another chicago that is any of thealmost places in the middle east we talk about and that you talk about every night on the newscasts. We will do a lot of work on the inner cities. I have great people lined up to help with the inner cities. Are you going to include the cbc in your conversations with your urban agenda, innercity agenda . Will you include the Congressional Black Caucus and the congressional President Trump you want to set up the meeting . Are they friends of yours . Go ahead, set up the meeting. I would love to meet with the black caucus. I think it is great, for Congressional Black Caucus. I thought i had a meeting with congressman cummings. He was all excited. That he said, oh, i cant move. It might be bad for me to have that meeting. We called him and called him. He was all set. I spoke to him on the phone, very nice guy. He wanted it. We called, called, called. We cant make a meeting with him. I said i would like to meet with him because i do want to solve the problem. He was probably told by schumer or someone like that, some other lightweight, he was probably told dont meet with trump. Is that politics. That is part of the problem in this country. One more. Go ahead. No, one question. This room cant handle two. Giving the better of your two. Give me the better of your two. [indiscernible] President Trump and some of it, and can i be honest with you . This has to do with racism and horrible things. Some of it written by our opponents. You do know that . The you understand that . You dont think anybody would do a thing like that. Some of the signs you will see are not put up by the people that love or like donald trump. They are put up by the other side. And you think its like playing it straight. No. You have some of those signs and some of that anger is caused by the other side. They will do signs and able to drawings that are inappropriate. It will be my people. He will be the people on the other side, to anger people like you. Ok. Just a clarification. President trump who is that . Oh. Stand up. [indiscernible] President Trump i am working on it. Understand, weu had a totally divided country for eight years and long before that. In all fairness to president obama, long before president obama we had a very divided i did not come along and divide this country. This country was seriously divided before i got here. One of the questions that was asked was about the inner cities. That is part of it. We will work on education. We will work on we will stop and try the crime. We have great Law Enforcement officials. We are going to stop crime. But its very important to me. This isnt donald trump that divided the nation. We went eight years with president obama and we went many years before president obama. We live in a divided nation. I am going to try, i will do everything within my power to fix that. I want to thank everyone very much. It is a great honor to be with you. Thank you very much. [applause] donald trump in the east room at the white house wrapping up a 75 minute long as conference i was called rather hastily. It was added about an hour and a half before the event to lace. He said he was speaking to the American People with the media present. There was a longer preamble at the top. A previous joint rest conference with leaders visiting the white house. I want to bring in senior White House Correspondent Margaret Kevin is on capitol hill. Germany,s us from reporting of a g20 Foreign Ministers meeting. Margaret, this was an unexpected press conference. Much of it having to do with how he feels he has been treated by the media. He also went through a long list of what he sees as big a competence in the first three weeks of his presidency. Not something you expected i imagine. What did you take away . Margaret after eight years of covering president obama i never heard a press conference like this one. About an hour and a half ago when this started, this was supposed to be to announce his choice for labor secretary to replace andy pazder. He wants to unify the country behind him, etc. Wow. That was like years ago. He covered the waterfront. Everything from the horrible media, except for the media that is good, to the world role melania will play in what role ivanka will play to help her. Feel important takeaways that we learned. He says he doesnt believe that hael flynn, movie let go, who he let go, did anything wrong in the context with the russians in the transition. He did not get into details about the classified nature of the transcripts, but he said the reason he let him go after his resignation was because he could not remember or did not properly tell Vice President pence when he talked about. Defending the actual nature of that conversation just before the Trump Presidency began. Other was to consist insist he has no business with the russians, no contact, no inappropriate contact or Campaign Contact with the russians. He was pressed several times and finally appeared to answer a much more interesting question politically, which was could he relet that anyone on his campaign had contact with the russians during the campaign. After repeated questioning he said not that he is aware of. That could become very important if this becomes an investigation with any lasting power. Nick, you wrote about the first meeting with Rex Tillerson having with his russian counterpart. It was described as an awkward first meeting. Secretary tillersons debut on the world stage. Was their conversation about this between the two gentlemen or sanctions . For was the substance of their meeting in germany . Nick what we know is in large part the secretary reiterated his demand that russia abide by its agreements made in 2014 to end violence in ukraine. There was not any substantive discussion about sanctions. Likely discussion about efforts to combat terrorism. The u. S. Said it was to work with russia to combat terrorism and to support a Peace Process in syria. From the readouts we have gotten, judging by what was omitted, i think it was probably a fairly studious effort to avoid any mention of these sorts of issues. That is something that the Russian Foreign minister and Rex Tillerson would have wanted to look tothe side as they meet each other for the first time and cultivate a relationship with donald trump once. Kevin, chief washington correspondent, the nomination of alex acosta. He talked about how he had been confirmed by the senate three times in the past. That has got to be incredibly important to this president. Kevin with key republicans in the senate withdrawing support forming to they are shore up any holes that have. President trump pointed out his chief of staff, the former head of the Republican Party and said he has observed he has had a utilize much of his time trying to put out fires, political fires. The president refutes them as fake news. Candidly, they are real allegations that caucus Republican Party on capitol hill off guard and concerned that perhaps they will utilize too much Political Capital as the president looks to call bushs legislative agenda. A republican from tennessee to senator john mccain, a republican from arizona who is consistently raised questions about this administrations ties to russia despite President Trumps insistence it is more than little more than fake news. He spoke about the ninth circuit in chaos. When we learned about that particular executive order . Margaret sounds like it will come up next week. Good,s it will be very but it sounds like they are very much actively engaged and trying to finish this process in a way that will succeed better than the earlier rollout. During this News Conference he defended that earlier rollout and said essentially the problem has been unfair coverage and the ninth circuit decision. Not the order itself, for the review of the order. We expect to have more details on that in a couple of days. Nick, Michael Flynn came up a couple of times. I imagine there is a shadow cast over the g20 conference and the Munich Security Conference this weekend, and event im sure he would of been attending. How was that changing the conversations being held at the g20 right now and will be held at the munich Security Summit this weekend . Nick you are seeing a desire by european leaders to be reassured that the u. S. Remains a staunch ally. And also to be reassured there is someone at the reins. There has been so much chaos with the resignation of Michael Flynn, the executive order on immigration and refugees, a lot of these leaders really just want to know someone is in charge in the u. S. And some is in fact setting policy and its really something they can get on board with. European leaders really want a reliable u. S. Ally they can work with on the russia issue, on syria, on so many issues. You are seeing a desire for that reassurance. Rex tillerson had 11 or 12 meetings today, bilateral meetings to deliver reassurances. We will likely see more of that in munich starting tomorrow afternoon. Thanks very much. Thanks to nick, margaret and chief washington correspondent kevin from the capital. Much more ahead on bloomberg markets. This is bloomberg. Scarlet President Trump just wrapped up a conference where he named alex acosta since election day, when you look at the market, smallcap stocks have almost doubled in the s p 500. Where our investors fighting value in Small Companies . Ofning us is the comanager the discovery fund, up 50 over the past year and one of the top 2 . Thank young us for joining us. Had is the make America Great again theme play into this . Randy most of our stocks are u. S. Related. Things that are good for the u. S. Economy are going to be good for the Growth Stocks in our portfolio. Ron does deep fundamental research and we try to find companies over time that will generate very good returns. We are targeting 15 annualized returns. It doesnt always happen, but we have since inception been about 11 . We are happy with that. Oliver there has been revisionist history that has emerged recently or they try to explain why markets are up. Maybe there is some truth to that in the postelection rally. It has lost in longer the people expected, but is it wrong for people to try to read further into the market other than seeing progress trump policy and buying on it . At the microk level from one stock to another. I think from the macro perspective markets are driven by expectations. I think that with the expectation that we have a probability of lower taxes and lower regulatory environment, there really is the possibility we can accelerate growth. We had a recession in 2008, one of the most severe we have seen an american history. The rebound from that recession has not been what it typically is. I think there was a lot of pentup attentional growth and these new policies, if they are enacted, could be good for the country. Scarlet one policy you are counting on is defense spending. That has led you to make bets on defenserelated tech companies. Position own a larger and mercury systems. Mercury is a terrific defense and a greater. They work with the likes of boeing, Lockheed Martin and raytheon. They are very unique in the quality of the systems they put together and the quality of the work. They are involved in patriot, f35, and some of the other defense programs. We think they are poised to continue to grow over the next three to five years. We think there is an additional 30 billion of potential outsourcing potential as the drive for defense efficiency and quality products and ontime product continues. Oliver we just heard trump say a lot of our defense is outdated. We need to have improvement. We have another call. It seems like they are largely suppliers and stuff like that, these big defense companies. Randy the upgrade and modernization of all the equipment is where one of the sweet spots is. It is perfect for them. Thank you very much. I appreciate being here. Scarlet coming up, the commodities close. Gold is up for a second day. Investors turning to a safe haven as the possibility of a fed increase steps up. This is bloomberg. From bloomberg world headquarters, this is bloomberg markets. The money markets are closing in new york, lets get a check at how oil is faring. This is after a government report showed that the u. S. Cut inventories were at a highest since 1982. It has been holding at 52 barrels. Remains stuck at that low 50 range. As for coffee future, they are at their second great day trading at the highest in almost two weeks after brazil cut their import tax. You can see that up by 1 . A second day,for they are seeing a possibility of a fed right height. Hike. Rate President Trump addressed reporters at the white house today, with a press conference that was extensively about his new press secretary labor secretary. Of on hist i know Campaign Staff contacted russia officials, his comments came after he criticized intelligence officials and the media after what he called a very very unfair treatment of the treatment of Michael Flynn who was forced to resign this week. That she did not disclose his talks with Russian Ambassador before the inauguration. They thought it would be harder vladimir what putin. I do know were going to make a deal, we may or may not read it would be much easier for me to be top. The tougher i am is the better. I want to do the right thing for the American People. To be honest, secondarily, i want to do the right thing for the world. White house Officials Say they conducted a thorough discussion on flynns interactions with russian officials, they found nothing illegal. President trumps controversial lead the epa has cleared a hurdle. He has been given a green light of 5046. ,e won unanimous gop support though he will face opposition in the final vote. He is opposed by environmental activists and almost every democrat. Senator collins says he does not trust him to protect the environment. They are investigating contacts between trump team and russia during an ad for the campaign that is important to National Security. Those probes began Michael Flynn was dismissed. Layoffs have been announced between the baltimorebased nonprofit that helps resettle refugees, it is letting go more than 140 staffers after the executive order cut the number of refugees coming into the United States. It will also post several of its own. Global news 24 hours a day powered by more than 2600 journalists and analysts, in more than 120 countries. I am mark crumpton, this is bloomberg. Mark, thank you. Lets go back to the big story. Trump is rejecting the notion that the white house is in chaos. He just wrapped up a News Conference that went almost an hour and they have. Bill fairies who is in washington joins us. Trump, andrd about how it pertains and how National Security pertains to the nation. Involvement with russia, where does that leave the questions that are on answered about current investigations into his staff . We do know that there are multiple investigations ongoing by both intelligence agencies , congressional committees on the hill. I do not think President Trump will have the last word on all of this. The investigations are looking at members of this campaign, and some people who made it into this investigation administration. The president made a point about saying he did not think what Michael Flynn did was inappropriate in terms of reaching out in for other countries. The problem was ultimately that flynn misinformed Vice President pence about what he said. That is what trump thought the problem was, he has turned the argument into one of believe about how do we investigate them. Press is nowe focus more on the procedural part of a look flynn did. With the president s ties into russia and the United States, who ultimately makes the decision after the investigation is concluded . It depends on the agency. The fbi has a big role in all of this. The have their own investigation. Their findings will help the Intelligence Community on the house and senate side to get to the bottom of what happened or did we have to people on capitol hill that have said the intelligence committees are collecting some of the underlying evidence. This was the basis for their conclusion in january that concluded russia hacked into the election. Vladimir putin was aware and helped direct those attacks. After they get that data and sort through it, those committees will help bring witnesses to the hill to testify. They do have subpoena power if people are not willing to testify on their own. Thatts talk about a story is an unorthodox called that trump made before he was actually in office. Force the offense air generals to manage a 430 Million Dollar program. Boeing, what happened there . F35 program is the most andnsive Weapons Program the medigap has been an expensive target of trump. He has tweeted about it at the cost is out of control. That itnow know is leaked twice to the trump. Managerd up the program why the super hornet plane could not be a competitor. What we know is that second call , the f35 is a lockheed weapon. Boeingthe ceo of listening in on the conference at trump tower. That is highly unusual. Tois unusual for a president call a Program Manager at the pentagon but to do it with your cap editor and ceo on the phone is unprecedented. Would you say the Lockheed Martin and boeing administration are a friend or foe. He says he was a very strong military, he talks about raising the number of soldiers in the army, navy, having more ships. They see that as a positive. I think what is a huge the prize is the degree to which he is intervening in the procurement process. Contract ist f35 something that was competed at 2021. These are very different planes. There is a lot of skepticism and surprise about trumps continued involvement in what everyone else considered a done deal. Think you so much. Consumers love their iphones and ipads, why not apple tv, we will talk about the disconnect. This is bloomberg. This is bloomberg markets, m oliver renick. Scarlet diane scarlet fu. We are taking a look at retail right now, we are looking at the worst performing groups, this is what is holding back any potential gains in the major averages. Best are is down a little bit this is what is doing the worst today. The components of the xrt is what is doing terrible. They are not Traditional Stores that you go into, these are stopmer acing companies, Companies Like trip advisor. That transition has not been working out so well, the Fourth Quarter profit was . 16 a share. That is missing those estimates by quite a wide gap. Gnc which is facing stiff earning chairhere was just seven cents. They fell by almost all cents. Cabelas, the Outdoor Stores outdoor Retail Store Chain is down six and a half percent. Partners say that them and bass pro is evident impasse. Their shares are trading at more. Han 10 above a level i want to talk about how the xrt has done it past the election. Someone is calling me while i am trying to do this. Can someone go and take that down. The xrt, we havent seen those kind of sideways. After initially spiking post election. You can see this is now outperforming. Sorry about that. You have people calling you all day. Even when she is on air. Biz s look at the biggest business stories in the news. Shares aremills slumping after a highly anticipated food deal is not imminent. They would acquire another package food company this year, they are saying their focus on decreasing sales. Areral mills, campbells, potential targets for this. As the richest these. Purchased hugo boss as not filed. Are close to reaching about 500 million for a private Equity Partner in silver lake. They are familiar with the matter. They said this would also the extension of online lending. The investment round would include several asian investors, they said this is taking equity. That is her business flash update. Applee than a decade ago, said they would revolutionize television with the apple tv. Now only 12 d that of customers use it. We will find out where they went wrong with our correspondent . , it happened with apple tv seems like five generations and it is not that popular . They really comes down to the content, gaming integration, all of the core contents of the vessel. Apple is offering content apps, they do not have their own service. A planned on integrating the apple tv into their network by havingthe apple tv connectivity with a cable box. They also planned a Bundle Service where you can have whatever channel you want streamed through your tv. Instead they are focusing on itunes and then app store. It all seems a giant ipad on your tv. Do they not have the right people on this . The concept comes out on the negotiation, who are negotiating the deals and why they are not getting this done . Not ablelike they are to get tv deals done with the cable networks. When apple negotiate with the carriers, they got it bigtime with the iphone. They totally upended the wireless Carrier Technology the rulesng having changed. They did this with music as well. The opportunity to reinvent the cable and Satellite Tv Networks has not been taken advantage of. What exactly is the competition in terms of media, who is using this . They have not been able to find their niche. I am not an apple guy, i think they are find, they do not have that same kind of customer specialty to it. We are seeing a big amount of innovation in the tv space with product like roku. Apple first announced the product in 2006, there has only been a couple of overhauls cents fed. It will take some innovations by apple to see any progress. They are talking about whole new versions, they are playing up the importance, but not delivering. Nothingbase, there is like the iphone with this, if they really innovative there like they did with the iphone space for the ipad and maybe there would be some more talk about what is happening with this. Talk about how finance plays into this, apple is really concerned about maintaining their margins, always that we are always focus on apple earnings. Having the apple tv the way they want to be having more margins, is this something they would be going to live with . To be around that corporate average. It used to be a little bit higher. They really own that with the mac and iphone. Really reveal all of the details, they would like to stick with that. Processor that was first released in 2014, that is not fast enough to crank out for k video. They have a big cut in the consumers do not pay more than 150. They think that they would rather cost less, apple is working on a new model that can get better picture and have higher range video. It is about twice the resolution, they will likely be able to do that, benefiting both parties. All over it as always, thank you so much. The trump long before plan to spend 1 billion in infrastructure, two engineers found take problem with ports, pipelines, the story is up next. This is bloomberg. This is bloomberg markets. Scarlet i am scarlet fu. President trump said he would spend 1 billion on infrastructure, that is something that Global Infrastructure partners have been doing for over a decade read this firm has several assets including ports and pipelines rated as well on the north sea. Jason kelly wrote a piece on the firm and their history from bloomberg magazine. He joins us now with more. What is their strategy, what do they do more . We did not talk about infrastructure for a long time. All of a sudden it has been this sexy topic that people talk about a cocktail party. Something that was really associated with ports and toll roads, parking lots, it is kind of boring stuff, it did not require a lot of work. Did, they were founded by a couple of ex bankers, if they said they are going to buy something lets get things we can fix. Airports was the think they started with. We heard people talk about airports as well. Pointhey gotten to the where they can now adapt their own strategy. What is interesting about airports specifically is that they have found a lot more opportunity across the seas, in the United Kingdom. Airports there are privately owned, here in the United States those opportunities are not there. Certainly there is a lot going with hess corp. , they have looked at investments and talked about the infrastructure that is going out there. So they go out and fix it, they go with people who know how to fix it, not necessarily in the airport industry, people who have this experience. This engineer who was in question, who got together back in 2006, he went through his rolodex and said i know people who really know how to optimize this, he called on these guys that it is all about logistics in an airport as we all know. Even with security and how to check into your flight, they were thinking like engineers not like people. If you like infrastructure. It really is. It seems like it is handson from a private equity firm. I talked to one of these engineers who talk about this and he kept a disposable suit in his office because he would spend so much time on the line moving luggage back and forth, if he had to meet with an investor he would change into a suit to look present a ball. It is a fascinating handson approach. Does this mean about how they are prepared for the future , we have seen at the returns . What the Current Administration has done it, it there is going to be a lot of opportunity here. Opportunity meeting people spending money and people making money. They have a 16 million funding, they closed it just a couple of weeks ago. More at thento downtown chunk of manhattan they have raised 14 billion. You are seeing a bunch of money poor in. You are also seeing some of the biggest names port in with people raising infrastructure funds. Competition, there may be these great returns that go down. Sojason kelly, thank you much. You can read the story on the Current Issue of bloomberg. Coming up, we will bring you ceo about from the the Real Estate Market and how that is changing admits Interest Rates. This is bloomberg. Scarlet welcome to bloomberg markets. Oliver we will be covering stories in moscow and london. Recent media in a 90 minute News Conference saying the white house is not in chaos. Around withuddling the s p 500 poised to snap a 17 day winning streak. Utilities are leading gains, Energy Stocks are dragging, and the dow is little changed. Trumps callident for massive Infrastructure Spending mean for the Real Estate Industry . Lets get started with President Trumps comments this afternoon. Were joined by the Senior Executive editor for local economics and government. Great to see you. With your decades of experience, seen a newsr conference like what we just experienced in the past hour . What was your main takeaway from what we heard from the president . Seen a News Conference like what we just experienced in the it was vine campaign. It was a debate performance without a debate. He came out there and he attacked the media. He deflected questions as best he could by turning the tables on the media itself. I thought it was an extraordinary performance and certainly unprecedented. At this idea look that its a debate without a debater. Its interesting, because there is a lot of sparring going on in that room. There are a lot of reporters that obviously want to get their questions in. He called on a lot of people but there are a lot of conferences where he only calls on selected people that he wants to hear from. They jump in and interrupt and there is kind of a backandforth. What do you make of the dynamic that has emerged at this point . Been tons of coverage in narrative about chaos in this white house. He obviously decided to come out there is no chaos, even though the press conference itself was chaotic. Theid remind me a lot of watergate press conferences of richard nixon, and they were pretty chaotic as well. Im not equating necessarily the Russian Investigation with watergate, but a lot of people are. So it was contentious. But donald trump thrives in that environment. Scarlet he did seem to look like he was soaking it up and really took his time pointing out who would ask the next question. He looked the part. Marty, how is this chaos slowing down policy . Bloomberg viewers want to hear concrete details about tax reform, about Infrastructure Spending, that plans to roll back regulation, and so far, they are still waiting. Substantive parts of what he is saying, those things are coming out. He promises his massive tax plan next week, and he basically accused the media of the collecting attention from those kinds of things that he really wants to achieve. So next week he is promising a whole array of concrete policies that may actually put some meat on the bones of his broad proposals. Ofrlet he accuses the media deflecting from those broad plans, but when the media ask about those bright plans, there are no details forthcoming. It is vagary after vagary. Marty im not going to stand here and defend the media or donald trump. What i will say as he has done a masterful job of trying to get his hands around the narrative. You booked me to talk about this extraordinary press conference. Every news channel is talking about it. So he is changing the narrative. Oliver when you think about the chaos that is described in terms of weve now obviously had to appointees that didnt make it through, to say the least. So there definitely is a story there, but he keeps saying its hard for him to get his people through but get them approved. Ideaere any truth to the that this is moving slowly for him, getting his nominees in their . Truth tos, there is that. The democrats have put up as many roadblocks as they can for people they know they cannot stop, as a protest. So he is right. The democrats in congress are slowing the process down, and although i would say that trump s people themselves have been slow to fill some of these cabinet level positions that are essential to the functioning of government. So they both have a hand in it. , thank Marty Shanker you for your perspective. We appreciate it. Moving on to a bloomberg exclusive on the future of global trade. Its been a hot topic with the president withdrawing the u. S. From tpp and proposing a border adjustment tax. Great to have you with us. I wonder if we have reached a point when you talk about multilateral trade deals. President trump has said he wants to pursue a bilateral trade deal. Is that the case in europe as well . We believe in multilateralism. And we believe in fair trade. Whenhave a grievance we have agreements, they should be good agreements for both sides. But most important to continue to believe in multilateralism. Its true at the you and its true of the wto and the imf for the Financial Financial situation of the world. You hear Prime Minister theresa may talking about a new trade deal with the eu and with the u. S. Practically speaking, are we turning away from multilateralism . Times are difficult for the wto. What we consider is that in times of brexit and also in times of the new administration here in the u. S. , it is more than ever important that the European Union as such becomes trading andconomic political power that we are able to assess our issues and values on the global stage. You rose to prominence back in august, saying the European Union should no longer pursue the deal with the u. S. What did you see then . What was it that made you less keen to pursue that deal . Normal for they Prime Minister one country to defend his countrys interests and values and also to defend the interests and values of the European Union. Our interest is to have good trade agreements with other countries. Agreement passed canada. Its a good agreement because it respects our agriculture, it gives good access to the canadian canada market and for e first time it puts into reality the french proposal, german proposal, european proposal now of a World Investment court to settle disputes with clear, transparent rules. It is most important in the world of globalization and this is the philosophy. When you look at what happened negotiations, is not possible to have a deal as long as the United States, which is in allied country and partner, imposes its own law around the World Without respecting other laws. Its not possible to have agreements without reciprocity. But that is what is happening in these negotiations and thats why france clearly asked for a stop of these negotiations. There is no Political Support for these negotiations from france and also from other European Countries in longer. President trump said again that he was critical of a deal with iran. It has not been economically beneficial to france. If the u. S. Were to rip it up or remove itself, how would that affect your trade relation with iran if at all . Important even before economic interest, for global peace and global stability. And otherth the u. S. Countries, has always been working to have an agreement that is very concrete, very ambitious, that allows us to have a clear view on what is happening in iran concerning Nuclear Weapons. This is not negotiable. , we want thisurse agreement to be fully respected and fully implemented. It was discussed by the u. S. , by European Countries and by iran. Its important to regional and global stability. Let me get your perspective on the french election. Many in the u. S. Are focusing on this, of course. When you look at Marine Le Pen and her popularity, how far do you think she could go . You could never rule out Something Like this. Ive always been saying that it was a threat to have her elected. Im elected in a constituency where the far right is very high and has been so for years and years. Whateasons you can compare happened to the u. S. , there are reasons you can compare to brexit, because in the middle classes and working classes you have lots of despair and difficulties, after years and years of free trade without globalization that makes winners but also losers. We have to look at this very clearly. But of course we are fighting against this philosophy, fighting against these actions. We consider that even though the french far right can enhance fears that exist in france, they do not have the right solutions. The first victims of such a victory would be the working class, the french middle classes. But you can never exclude such a victory. Last question is about how useful it is to draw the parallel between the brexit vote, the u. S. Selection of donald trump, and now with what is happening in france with Marine Le Pen having more popularity than many would have forecast. Is there a line of continuity between those three events . Haveat is true is that we fears and difficulties in the middle and working classes, and in these different elections, that is what we see. That is what is rising, and people expressed these fears and difficulties. So it is most important for all those who have a responsibility in public life and private life, never to forget that globalization made lots of winners and also lots of people who lose a lot. These are the people we have to work for. We have to defend them, and i think it is a key issue around the world. Oliver, back over to you. Oliver coming up, part of my interview with billionaire investor very sternly. Barrys very sternly licht. This is bloomberg. Oliver welcome back to bloomberg markets. One of the strongest correlations through the bull market has been one resting between Real Estate Investment trust an Interest Rates where investors have flocked to the dividends. Now with expectations ramping up, the future could be in the balance. I spoke about the sector with , a real estatet investor and developer. Are those who thought they were going to get hurt on the principle. There is no question there are other things they can buy. Probably the most least talked in thehing about reits United States is the japanese investor which is just poured into the market. If it reverses, you will see these reits go down. Domestic buying has not been very large at all the last couple of years, but the japanese have poured money into the u. S. , seeking protection over a weakening currency and much higher yields than they can get at home. Thats probably the hidden story of the reits that people dont talk about. Oliver last time you were here the 10 year yield was about 18 basis points lower. You talked about the risk of an overheating economy. What does donald have to be concerned about . You said if we throw too much kerosene on the economy, that will be bad. What does trump have to be concerned about . Barry the pace of his multiple stimuli. Its a dangerous game. The first thing you learn in business is dont kick your banker in the face. Your banker in this case is china and the middle Eastern Sovereign that have traditionally bought our excess debt, our deficit spending. He wants to increase defense spending and do Infrastructure Spending, so we need revenue. And we might go down before we go up in terms of tax receipts. If you cut corporate and individual taxes, the hope is the economy accelerates enough and other ways for the tax cuts to grow. I think its a leap of faith. At oo much to throw its like taking too many steroids at once. We dont have 14 unemployment anymore and Certain Industries have tremendous holes, but ,artnering, mentoring programs im all for Infrastructure Spending and deregulation, to some extent. We have overregulated and strangled Certain Industries like the banks. I think Corporate Tax cuts are and individual tax moderation. Fast, and at to the same time he put trade barriers on china and they are spikeat us, rates could suddenly, hard, and that would be bad for the equity markets. If rates are going up because of great economic growth, we are all pretty happy as long as they dont go hog wild. Thats 400 billion of interest expense we do not have. 6 trillion of debt is what we are paying ourselves. But there is 3 trillion of debt held by third parties. Think we have to be careful. What im seeing right now, i like what im seeing. Im seeing some discussion and some thoughtful giveandtake, so thats a good thing. Haser one area that trump not given a ton of details, he said he wants to spend a lot on infrastructure, but the details of not become clear yet. What would you like to see that could spur infrastructure and companies and private industry to get on board . Its great. Infrastructure spending, its too bad we havent done it. What you need is a line of roger and someone will have to comb through them. Nowhere need bridges to or paving the roads at my summer place in nantucket seven times. We probably dont need a wall. I would rather see that go to building schools and a Better School system. I really dont believe that is an issue, but i am in the minority there, i suppose. Think Infrastructure Spending will be great. Some of the airports are a mess and others are fine. Is great and new york city airports are not so great. I just took a 10 day trip around the world. Ands in the middle east every airport is nicer than jfk. That is an interesting issue. But also logistics, transportation, ports, our railway system, bridges and tunnels, a road systems. But they have to line up, we cannot do it all. It will take time. Its hardest to put in place because once you identify the project in you had to design it, bid it, and build it. You are talking year three and four of the Trump Administration before you start to see that, probably. Oliver that was a portion of my interview with barry sternlicht. Scarlet we will speak with Chris Collins of new york who organized a meeting between President Trump and a group of congressional supporters. Find out what they had to say and what they learned. This is bloomberg. Oliver this is bloomberg markets. Scarlet lets return to politics after President Trumps News Conference, 75 minutes of it, lashing out at the news media. Earlier he met with a group of congressional supporters. Is on capitol hill with a lawmaker who organized that meeting. Im joined by representative crist collins, a republican from new york. What did you talk about with President Trump earlier today at the white house . I was very honored, there were 11 of its 11 of us that first endorsed donald trump as a candidate. Ago i was talking to the president and he said we should get our group back together, what we called the trump caucus, the original caucus of 11 individuals. We set it up at 10 30 this morning. Had a great onehour meeting with the president. The icing on the cake is when he said, you have been in the oval office before . We said no. Kevin what did you talk about, though . We talked about the repeal and replace of obamacare, the importance of tax reform. Promises made, promises kept. Infrastructure, we talked about our own districts. Is travelingtrump to south dakota tomorrow. I did get a positive feeling about the xl pipeline. The topic was discussed and i came away smiling that i think its going to move in a good direction. I dont want to get into particulars but i felt good, as the numberone supporter and after the meeting i felt very good about it. Kevin this comes at a time when theres widespread witticism that this is the white house of chaos. You have republicans in the senate who are questioning the of hisnships administrations officials with russia and his campaign ties with russia. Do you believe those allegations, and is it right for republicans to be raising these concerns . Lets start with the russian allegations. Number one, i dont believe any of them. Number two, i would refer everyone to the president when he was a candidate, his form. Ial disclosure im not talking about his tax returns. Im about Financial Disclosure income. Ich list all his on that form, if there is no listing of assets in russia, then there arent any. Would it be wise for him to release his tax returns to settle the issue about ties to russia . Most ridiculous thing. Its not on the tax returns. Its on a personal Financial Disclosure form. Thats where you list them all. They are not on a tax return. Thats the craziness of everyone demanding the tax returns. Its on the personal Financial Disclosure form. Every piece of raw pretty, any debts associated with them every piece of property. No assets in russia, theres no assets. Many folks would argue that releasing additional disclosure would provide more transparency about his financial dealings with russia. That is just plain wrong. I want to get back to republicans in the senate calling for more investigations into this white house. Corkerlike senator bob and john mccain, vehemently arguing that the white house take a tougher stance against russia. Of all of that, that republicans are calling on this, not just him a kratz . Am very disappointed, because donald j. Trump was elected president of the United States and commanderinchief. He makes the decision on how he thinks it is best to deal with russia, iran, north korea, nato. Its his decision. He was elected president. Congressman or senators should not be secondguessing the president. It is his decision with his advisers, working with the secretary of defense and others. If he decides he wants to do this or that with iran, it is his purview as commanderinchief. These senators need to go do their job and let the president of the United States do his job. Their criticism hurt the republican controlled ability does all this noise hurt their ability to pass President Trumps agenda . I dont think so. ,m on the Health Subcommittee and ways and means is far down the road on tax reform. We need to get repeal and replace done first and then we will move to tax reform. We are all talking about infrastructure. There are separate committees moving the ball forward. The other conversations in some cases are just noise in the wind. Are you satisfied with paul ryan and what he has done amid all the chaos of the white house or these allegations . Is the president satisfied with how reader leadership in the Republican Party has been handling the fallout here on capitol hill . We dont believe there is any chaos. The media may call it chaos. We have 13 at of cabinet officials now in. The president introduced his new labor secretary nominee today. It is moving extraordinarily well. If it were not for senator schumer, they would already be in place. The president is very happy with the relationships, certainly lead,ence being in the things are moving along very well on all the fronts. Repeal and replace, infrastructure, as well as tax reform. Talked about tax reform in your meeting. The details did not come up. He is committed to making sure on the 20 18 budget using reconciliation, were going to get that done. The border adjustability taxes front and center. Its the revenue to reduce the rates. We will have to see how others react, but i believe that is the key to fundamental tax reform. Kevin congressman Chris Collins, we appreciate your time. Scarlet thank you so much. Bloombergmore on first word news this afternoon. Lawmakers are close to introducing legislation to repeal and replace the of portable care act. Conference,y press speaker of the health paul ryan set the timeline but did not specify a date. After the house returns following president s day, we intend to introduce legislation to repeal and replace obamacare. It has become increasingly clear that this law is collapsing. House lawmakers are set to leave washington for the president s day break and return on every 27th. The Senate Judiciary panel will begin confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee neil gorsuch it march 20 according to chuck grassley. He was selected to fill the vacancy left by Justice Antonin Scalia is death