Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the White House Briefing Room for Wednesday, September third.
I'm John Decker. President Trump makes a military related announcement
in the Oval Office.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I am thrilled to report that the US Space Command
headquarters will move to the beautiful locale of a place
called Huntsville, Alabama, forever to be known from this point
forward as.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Rocket President once again threatens to send the National Guard
to US cities that continue to experience violent crime.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Chicago is a hellhole right now, Baltimore is a hellhole
right now, parts of Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
And the President gives his reaction to very false reports
over the Labor Day weekend of his demise.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Well, it's fake news, you know. It's just so it's
so fair.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
That we begin this Wednesday with a major announcement in
in the Oval Office concerning US Space Command. Ending a
year's long fight over where US Space Command should be based,
President Trump in the Oval Office announced that military space
operations will be moving to Huntsville, Alabama. Now, I was
(01:19):
in the Oval Office on Tuesday, and a good reason
for that is because many of the stations that I
work for are actually based in Alabama. Huntsville, Mobile Birmingham, Dothan, Montgomery.
In addition to that, I also report for a station
(01:39):
based in Colorado Springs. And Colorado Springs is on the
losing end of this announcement that the President made on
Tuesday in the Oval Office, Space Command is moving from
Colorado to Alabama. Now, members of the Alabama Congressional delegation
(02:00):
on hand in the Oval Office as the President made
this announcement, and the President said it will result in
more than thirty thousand jobs in Alabama, hundreds of millions
of dollars in addition to that of investment. And the
President actually called on me first after this announcement was
made in the Oval Office and I asked the President
(02:24):
about other benefits that could possibly be derived from this
strategic move. Let's listen to my question and the way
that the President answered it.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
Talking about the postage this announcement. Can you talk about
the strategic benefits by having a Space Force Command headquartered
in Luster.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Well, it just works because we have so much else
there and having a central you could call it a
central Command, but it really is a command station. Also
even locationally where it is, and when you think about
flying distances, if you can save a half an hour
as fast as some of these planes go and things go,
and even the rockets go, if you can say, by
(03:08):
having the best location. So we went out, as you know,
to experts, and we had four different groups of experts.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
They all said this was the best location.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
The President also spoke about how hard the Alabama lawmakers
that were in the Oval Office lobbied for US Space Command.
He said that that's all they spoke about when they
met with the President. When they called the president. Senator
Tommy Tuberville was there. Senator Katie Britt was also in
(03:39):
the Oval Office. Each of them made remarks tuting why
this will be beneficial not only to their state, but
also to the country as a whole. This appearance by
the President in the Oval Office came after a week
of actually not seeing the President, not hearing from the President.
(03:59):
He returned to public view and over the weekend there
was wild speculation online that the President was sick or,
in the case of some baseless posts on social media,
even deck and the President was asked directly about those
reports during this Oval Office appearance. Let's listen to the
(04:21):
way that Fox News is. Peter Doucey posed his question
to the president and the way the President responded to
that question.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
People live seem for a couple of days one point
three million user engagements as of Saturday morning about your demise.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Really, I didn't see that, you know, I have heard
it's sort of crazy.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
But last week I did numerous news conferences, all successful.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
They went very well, like this is going very well,
and then I didn't do any for two days, and
they said there must be something wrong with him. Biden
wouldn't do him for months. You wouldn't see him, and
nobody ever said there was ever anything wrong with him,
and we know he wasn't in the greatest of shape.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
No, I heard that. I get reports.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
My read on the president in the Oval office was
that he was not happy about that particular question being
posed to him. He saw the reports clearly he responded
to that question. Here's a little bit more about what
the President had to say.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
I didn't hear that one. That's pretty serious though. Well
it's fake news, you know, it's just so, it's so fake.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
That's why the media has so little credibility. I knew
that you were saying, like, is he okay, how's he feeling?
Speaker 3 (05:30):
What's wrong? I said, I just left. And it's also
sort of a longer weekend.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
You know, it's Labor Day weekend, So I would say
a lot of people know I was very active this
Labor Day.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
I had heard that, but I didn't hear to that.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
To me, that was essentially the clickbait part of the
President's Q and A with reporters in the Oval Office.
I didn't think that that was worthy of asking a question.
But I look, the president, as the President often does,
pretty much answers every question that posed to him, and
he answered that question yesterday in the way that you
(06:04):
just heard him answer it. The President was also asked
about what his latest thinking is concerning moving more National
Guards troops into other American cities beyond what he's done
already in Washington, d C. And the nation's capital, And
the President was asked specifically about the possibility of sending
(06:28):
troops to the city of Chicago, which has seen over
the last three weeks an increasing amount of violent crime, deaths,
shootings taking place over the past three weekends. So the
President being asked this question, are you going to be
sending the National Guard into Chicago. Let's listen to what
(06:49):
the President had to say to that particular question.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Well, we're going in.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
I didn't say when we're going in when you lose. Look,
I have an obligation.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
This isn't a political thing. Have an obligation.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
What was interesting to me about the way the President
answered that question so directly and so forcefully is that
Also on Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that National Guard
troops actually ran a foul of the law in Los
Angeles when President Trump deployed them in June after immigration
protests turned violent there. US District Judge Charles Bryer ruled
(07:26):
that their actions violated a law from the late eighteen
seventies that generally bars federal troops from participating in civilian
law enforcement. And the ruling, of course, came on the
same day that the President publicly discussed putting troops in Chicago.
(07:48):
Let's hear what the President had to say about the
possibility of the governor of Illinois requesting troops from the
federal government to maintain the peace on the city streets
of Chicago.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
If the governor Illinois would call up, call me up,
I would love to do it.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Now, we're going to do it anyway. We have the
right to do it. Because I have an obligation to
protect this country for me.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
One of the most important questions that I wanted to
ask the President on Tuesday had to do with a
decision that was made late Friday by an appella court
here in Washington, d C. That rule that the president's
so called reciprocal tariffs were illegal. A court ruled seven
(08:36):
to four against the president on that They said that
those tariffs could remain in place all the way through
October fourteenth. But this gives plenty of time for the
administration to file and appeal to the US Supreme Court.
And based on all of that, I wanted to get
(08:57):
from the President his reaction to that decision by that
federal appellate courts in the nation's capital. Let's listen to
the question that I posed to the President and the
answer that he gave me.
Speaker 5 (09:09):
I love what you were saying regarding that federal appellate
court that ruled against you and your administration as it
relates to European.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Well, they ruled against our country the court, and they
ruled against us before.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
It's a very liberal court. Well, it certainly is, it
certainly is exactly.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
It was a long ideological line seven to four.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Well, except that we actually got one of the Obama
judges that was appointed by President Obama voted in favor
of the tariffs because he felt it was imperative for
our country to thrive and survive. Even uh, and I
gave him credit, and I said, you know what, that
took a lot of courage for him to do it,
because you don't see that often.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
So my question is, I imagine, I suspect you're going to
appeal that all the way to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Well, we already have, you know, in fact, we're doing
something else. We're going to be going to the Supreme
what we think tomorrow because we need an early decision.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
It gets pretty clear that the President is bothered by
this decision. He's bothered by this decision because almost every
day he talks about the fact that the US Treasury
is deriving a significant amount of revenue from the President's
tariff's policy, tens and tens of billions of dollars every month.
(10:22):
And the idea of all of that going away based
upon a decision by this appellate court or potentially by
the highest court in the land, the US Supreme Court,
I think has created a lot of concern for the
President about his economic policies, his legislative policies going forward.
(10:43):
And you can get a sense from that in the
way the President responded to my question right here.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
It's a very important decision and frankly, if they make
the wrong decision, it would be a devastation for our country.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Now, putting myself off in the shoes of President Trump,
you'd have to imagine that he's thinking about a Plan B.
What happens if on appeal the administration loses at the
US Supreme Court they rule that the President acted unconstitutionally
imposing those tariffs on everyone of America's trading partners. And
(11:22):
that is why I pose this question to the president,
what's his plan B? What's his backup? And you can
hear the question that I asked the President, and he
clearly has already thought about this plan B, this possibility
of a Plan B. Let's hear my question and the
way the President answered that question right here.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
As a backstop to that President, you have a Republican
controlled Compress, you control the House, you control the sty
but we.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Don't have sixty votes.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
We don't have sixty votes. You'd love to do that oh,
if we had, if we had sixty senators, if we
got the sixty votes, we.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Would get them.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
But we need sixty votes and we need, you know,
a certain number in the.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
House we'd get. I think we'd get I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
We have about five of them here would everybody agree
with without tariffs?
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Who are a different country.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
So based upon that answer, it's pretty clear that Plan
B is not really there. It's all dependent on what
the Supreme Court ultimately decides and what we saw at
the lower level court, at the Federal Appeals Court that
heard arguments on this matter. The court ultimately ruled along
(12:35):
ideological lines, and the president would love that if that
happens at the Supreme Court. After all, it's a super
conservative majority sixty three, and if all the conservative justices
side with the president, side with the administration, then the
President will get to keep those reciprocal tariffs in place
(12:57):
and the revenue will keep streaming in to the US Treasury.
Looking ahead to Wednesday, the President has a meeting on
his schedule. It's a bilateral meeting and it's with Poland's president.
He is making his first official trip abroad, and he's
coming to Washington, DC and he's hoping to really cement
(13:19):
a very deep relationship that he's built with President Trump.
And early May he was running for the presidency and
he visited with President Donald Trump. He received Donald Trump's endorsement.
They posed together for a photo and the President told
Noraki at the time, you will win, and here we
(13:43):
are several months later, and that clearly was a boost
for Iraqi. He went on to narrowly win Poland's presidential election,
and he returns to Washington, this time as Poland's president.
What's on the agenda, certainly talking about the war in Ukraine.
In addition to that, Poland has a very close military
(14:05):
relationship with the US, and for good reason. About ten
thousand American soldiers are currently stationed in Poland. There's a
US missile defense site for intercepting sure to intermediate range
ballistic missiles that's in operation in northern Poland since twenty
twenty four. So not only will those issues related to
(14:28):
security issues be on the agenda. Always, when you're visiting
the president and you're a foreign leader, you talk about
trade issues as well. The president most likely will take
questions in the Oval office, more opportunities to ask the
president his take on a variety of issues, including his
(14:49):
latest take about that deadline that he is imposed for
Russian President Vladimir Putin, that deadline to make a date
to meet with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenski. That deadline is
coming up this coming Friday, so mark that date on
your calendar. So that's it for the White House Briefing
(15:11):
Room for Wednesday, September three. I'm John Dekker. Have a
good one.