Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to the White House Briefing Room for Wednesday, July
the twenty third. I'm John Decker. It was a very
busy Tuesday for President Trump. As far as trade deals
are concerned. We haven't seen many trade deals announced by
the administration since April the second, when Liberation Day, as
(00:30):
the President called it, was announced, and we saw this
delay in terms of the President announcing new trade tariffs
on America's trading partners. But on Tuesday to trade deals,
we don't know all the details regarding them. Two trade
deals were announced by the President and both of them
were announced on social media, the President's Truth Social social
(00:55):
media site. The President met on Tuesday in the Oval
Office with President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, and after
he left the White House, the President posting a readout
of their bilateral meeting on Truth Social He said they
concluded a trade deal whereby the Philippines is going to
(01:17):
open its market to the United States with zero tariffs,
and the Philippines will pay a nineteen percent tariff on
all of their goods that are sent to the US.
This is something that really doesn't surprise me. The day before,
Caroline Levitt, the White House Press Secretary hinted to me
(01:38):
that a trade deal could be reached with the Philippines
during this official visit by President Marcos to the White House,
and indeed that's what happened. Later in the day, the
President announced on social media that his administration had reached
an agreement with Japan on trade, and this is something
(01:58):
that the President and his trade team have been working
on for a few months now. President posted on truth
social that Japan would invest five hundred and fifty billion
dollars in projects in the United States, but he didn't
specify what those investments would entail. He also announced that
(02:19):
Japan would be hit with a fifteen percent tariff on
all Japanese goods coming into the United States. That's lower
than the twenty five percent tariff that President Trump had
threatened to impose on Japan beginning on August the first.
The President also indicated that this would open up American
(02:43):
products to the Japanese market, including US automobiles, rice, and
other agriculture products. It's unclear that just because Japan is
opening up its markets to US automobiles, there would be
an increase in the purchase of automobiles in Japan. If
you've ever been to Japan, let alone any Asian country,
(03:06):
you will notice a dearth of American vehicles on the road.
It's Japanese vehicles, it's Korean vehicles. Depending upon where you're
traveling in Asia, it's Chinese vehicles. But very few American
vehicles are on the roads in Asian cities around the world.
Japan is one of America's largest trading partners. The US
(03:28):
exported about eighty billion dollars in goods to Japan in
twenty twenty four. That's according to the US Trade Representative's Office,
while Japan exported roughly one hundred and forty eight billion
dollars to the United States, thus the trade deficit that
the US has. It was also a big day as
(03:50):
far as news was concerned, for some comments that the
President made in the Oval Office while he was meeting
with President Marco. The President made a statement, President Marcus
made a statement, and then, as is typical when the
president is meeting with a foreign leader, he opens it
(04:11):
up to questions from the small group of reporters the
pool as it's known that is covering that bilateral meeting. Well,
I happened to be in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
Part of that small pool, I add nine different questions
prepared for the President in terms of asking him on
(04:33):
a variety of subjects domestic policy issues, foreign policy issues,
security issues. But as the President was speaking, I looked
at my list. It was a list of nine topics.
I don't really write out the questions. There are more topics,
and then I formulate the question on the fly, so
to speak. And it was my eighth question that I
(04:55):
wanted to ask the President, and it was based upon
what he was talking about. In response to another question,
the President in the Oval office, with President Marcos by
his side, responded to my question about recently declassified documents
by the Director of National Intelligence Tulci Gabbert. Tulsi Gabert,
(05:17):
the DNI said that documents detail an alleged treasonous conspiracy
by officials at the highest level of the Obama White House.
Let me have you listen to the question that I
posed to the President and a snippet of his answer.
Take a listen to this.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Tulsi Gabert has submitted a criminal referral to the Department
of Justice. From your perspective, who should the DOJ target
as part of their investigation. What specific figures in the
Obama administration.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Well, based on what I read, and I read pretty
much what you read, it would be President Obama. He
started it, and Biden was there with him, and Komi
was there, and Clapper, the whole group was there, Brennan,
they were all there in a room right here. This
was the room.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Well, that was a snippet. It was a seven minute
long answer that the President gave me in response to
my question. The President reiterated that he blames his predecessor,
former President Barack Obama, for presiding over the alleged conspiracy.
Let's listen to this coming from President Trump.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
But the leader of the gang was President Obama, Barack
Flussein Obama. Have you heard of him? And except for
the fact that he gets shielded by the press for
his entire life, that's the one they look. He's guilty.
It's not a question, you know, I like to say,
let's give it time. It's there. He's guilty. They this
(06:51):
was treason. This was every word you could think of.
They tried to steal the election.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Now, President Trump, he first served in the White House,
as we all know, in his first term from twenty
seventeen to twenty twenty one. He's never before alleged such
a plot, and the President in March ordered the declassification
of all files related to the FBI's investigation into Russian
interference in the twenty sixteen election. There are those who
(07:21):
may be cynical and say, well, the reason why the
President is bringing this up now is to divert attention
from all of the attention focused on Jeffrey Epstein and
the call for the release of all files related to
Jeffrey Epstein's criminal investigation that apparently are in the possession
(07:45):
right now of the Department of Justice. That's what the
Attorney General, Pam Bondi, has indicated. She called it a
truckload of documents that are in the possession of the DOJ.
But she has also indicated she is there's no intention
of releasing those documents. Instead, she submitted a formal request
(08:06):
to a federal judge that presided over Jeffrey Epstein's criminal case,
and in that formal request, she asked this federal judge
to release or unsealed the grand jury testimony associated with
the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. And now it's up to that
(08:26):
federal judge, as to whether or not he will adhere
to that request coming from the Department of Justice. It's
very unusual for that to happen. Now, I'm speaking as
a lawyer, as you may recall, I'm the only lawyer
in the White House Press Corps, and it's really unusual
for a federal judge to unseal grand jury testimony. That
(08:47):
testimony is typically kept sealed, it's secret. So I think
it's very unlikely that this federal judge that presided over
the Epstein criminal case will come apply with this request
coming from the DOJ, which will only lead Republicans actually
to a call on the release of this material. There
(09:10):
are Republicans who've done that, including the House Speaker Mike Johnson. Now,
he announced on Tuesday that he is cutting short the
week's legislative business. He's sending the House home early for
the summer, and that's really to avoid having to hold
votes on releasing files related to Jeffrey Epstein. And so
(09:32):
the move will for now deny Democrats the chance to
force a procedural vote that would call on the Justice
Department to make the information public. But I don't think
it's going to essentially tamp down requests from Republicans, members
of the president's own party for the release of this material.
(09:53):
This is happening at the base level of the party.
Not every member of the party's calling for this, but
there certainly are strong supporters of the president, individuals who
would describe themselves as maga Republicans who are calling for
the release of this material. And it's one of those
rare stories that continues to dog the president. This is
(10:17):
now a week's old long story, and I can't think
of any other issue during the president's second term that
has lasted this long in terms of the news cycle.
You think about Signalgate, for instance, that lasted about a
week and then it went away. You know, the news
just overwhelmed that story, and we haven't seen that with
(10:40):
this particular story involving the Jeffrey Epstein files related to
the criminal investigation into the convicted sex predator Jeffrey Epstein.
So we'll have to see what happens in the weeks
ahead as it relates to this story. Congress is now
out going on recess, The House is going on recess.
(11:03):
They'll come back in about a month's time and we'll
see if this issue still is ever present. It does help.
The Congress isn't in Washington as far as the President
is concerned. I should also mention a response to what
the President said in his allegations. Coming from former President
Barack Obama. He released a statement, and let me read
(11:26):
that statement to you. I thought it was a well
written statement written by Patrick Rodenbusch, the President's spokesperson. He writes,
out of respect for the office of the Presidency, our
office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation
flowing out of this White House with a response. But
these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre
(11:49):
allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction. Nothing
in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted
conclusion that Russia work to influence the twenty sixteen presidential election,
but did not successfully manipulate any votes. These findings were
affirmed in a twenty twenty report by the bipartisan Senate
(12:12):
Intelligence Committee, led by then chairman Marc Rubio. So that's
the statement coming from the office of former President Barack Obama,
who typically does not issue statements for everything that the
president says. It's very rare, in fact, for a statement
to be released by the former president's office, but I
guess he felt given what President Trump was saying during
(12:35):
the course of Tuesday, including in the evening for an
event that I also attended in the East Room in
which the President invited House Republican members to celebrate the
president's first six months back in office in his second term.
The President once again railed against President Barack Obama, calling
him a cheater as it relates to the twenty sixteen
(12:58):
presidential election, by the way, an election that President Trump
won very easily over Hillary Clinton. So now we look
to Wednesday and what may happen Wednesday, and there's going
to be a White House Press briefing held by Caroline Levitt.
Caroline Levitt, it's the job of a White House Press
(13:19):
secretary to be there to answer those questions on good days,
days that you're touting some good economic news, and bad days,
days in which a story just won't go away. You
try to make it go away, but for all of
your efforts, you hear question after question on a variety
of subjects. So what will she likely be asked about
(13:42):
as she takes questions in the White House Press briefing
room at one pm Eastern time on Wednesday. Certainly I
think Jeffrey Epstein will be mentioned, and the Jeffrey Epstein
files will be mentioned by a number of reporters in
the briefing room on when, as will the statement that
(14:03):
I just read made by the office of former President
Barack Obama some follow ups to that. You know, one
of the key things when you're in the briefing room
that I found useful is to be a good listener.
So it's good sometimes to be armed with questions or topics.
I'm always armed with questions and topics, but sometimes based
(14:23):
upon what I hear in terms of a response makes
me go in a different direction. So I sit in
the fourth row in the briefing room, I often get
called upon. I've been called upon pretty regularly lately, which
is a good thing. But you know, because I'm in
the fourth row, I often listen to what questions are
(14:47):
being posed by my colleagues and listen to the answers
being given by the White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt.
And then after I do that, formulate a question that
I think will be useful use for the public to
know an answer to and that's likely what I'll do tomorrow. Again.
I'll be armed with questions, armed with topics, but oftentimes,
(15:11):
again because I'm in the fourth row, sometimes those topics
or questions have been asked, and I'm not going to
simply ask the same question in a different matter. I'm
going to ask a question that hasn't been asked before.
And so that's what i will do. When the White
House Press Briefing happens on Wednesday, it will be a
(15:31):
busy day for Caroline Levitt fielding those questions. The briefings
typically last around a half hour to forty minutes, and
I think that that will be the case tomorrow. I
saw Caroline Levitch, she took a few questions, including one
for me, on Tuesday, and that is when she indicated
(15:52):
that there would be a White House Press briefing that
would take place on Wednesday. The President has a short week.
He's heading to Scotland this weekend. He leaves on Friday,
so I think he wants to get a lot under
his belt in terms of announcements and getting them out
there before he departs for Scotland on Friday morning. And
(16:15):
perhaps we could see another trade agreement announced before the
President departs on this overseas trip. That's it for Wednesday,
July the twenty third for the White House Briefing Room.
I'm John Decker. Thanks for listening. Have a good one.