08/13/20: Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany Holds a Press Briefing

Hello everyone, this is a historic day and I have senior advisor jared kushner here with me, ambassador robert o'brien, they are going to summarize the history that was made today and answer some of your questions. We also have Special Representative Avi Berkowitz here and Special Envoy to Iran, Brian Hook, who will be present. Thank you Kellie and thank you all for being here. I want to start today by congratulating the people of Israel and the people of the United Arab Emirates. Today is a historic breakthrough and a great day for Paz, I also want to congratulate President Trump on this milestone.

He worked very hard on this with his team. We worked with Prime Minister Netanyahu and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, who really are two visionary leaders who today took a big step forward to really change the situation. region the last time we had an agreement like this in the region was in 1994, when Israel signed an agreement with the kingdom of Jordan that stopped aggression and helped achieve peace. In the last 26 years there have been many events in the region, some positive but many of which have set the region back and caused many lives to be lost, many opportunities and hopes to be destroyed and a region that has really had a lot of problems when President Trump took office we had a caliphate for Isis in the middle.

In the east, which was the size of Ohio, we had a lot of instability. Iran's aggression was being felt throughout the region. Many of their representatives were very well funded and causing instability in Yemen, Syria and elsewhere, and now we are in a position where we have been able to work with our allies, many of our allies felt abandoned. President Trump was able to rebuild those relationships. His first trip as president was to Saudi Arabia in May 2017, where he outlined the problems facing the country. region and he articulated very clearly that to make progress we would all have to work together around common goals and we would have to recognize historical differences and conflicts, but we cannot allow those conflicts to impede us from President Trump's leadership. ability to build relationships with leaders in the region, people were modernizing their society and realizing that we needed a new paradigm.

During President Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia, we reached an agreement with many of these countries that we were going to begin a counterattack. -Terrorist Financing Center and since then we have worked to limit the amount of funding that goes to extremist groups. We worked with Saudi Arabia, which is the custodian of the two holy sites, and we worked with them to create a counter-extremism center. fighting online extremism and that has made a big difference because you can't solve the short-term problem without taking on the long-term fight. We have seen Saudi Arabia make many modernizations in recent years by giving more rights to women and taking steps in the right direction which have been very positive and now today's progress really allows us to move forward.

To give you a little background on this deal, this is something that has been in discussions for over a year and a half. Talking to Israel, we were talking to the UAE about moving forward, obviously because of the Israeli elections and other things that were happening in the region. This is something that was talked about, but it never got to the right place for it to happen. As you know, agreements are made when agreements are ready and peace agreements are very rare and very historic and there are many reasons why people would not be able to move forward.

What we saw was when the president presented his vision for peace, that he worked very hard for a couple of years to really try to understand the problems in the region between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Presented 180 pages of details on how we can address the problems of the past but also figure out how to move forward during that recognition, President Trump was able to get Israel to agree to have a two-state solution with the Palestinians and, for the first time in history, agree to a map outlining the territory they would be willing to work with to be able to see That happened and it showed a lot of people in the region that Israel really wanted to move forward and make peace and it also showed them that President Trump's leadership and diplomacy could make them Things happened that had never happened before.

What happened while Israel was arguing. With us providing to bring Israeli law and sovereignty to areas of the West Bank and applying it, we had these discussions and over the last six weeks the discussions between the UAE and Israel began to accelerate around this being a different potential path. We all saw Ambassador Oteva's option. -Ed who came out said he thought applying Israeli sovereignty to these areas would be detrimental to the region and a new course was created, a new option was discussed which ultimately both countries thought was a much more viable option to pursue forward.

Israel agreed to suspend those efforts at this time and as a result we are going to focus on bringing these two countries together. This is truly a historic breakthrough and shows that President Trump's leadership from the Riyadh speech to today is very much seen. Different Middle East than the one he inherited and hopefully there will be many more good things to come. This is an icebreaker between these two countries. This is the first Arab country to normalize relations with Israel in a long time. 26 years since Jordan and what we are going to do. Hopefully, we'll see more countries start to do the same.

The last thing I'll say is that here in the United States, the biggest threat we saw in the last campaign was actually two things, one was Isis, the caliphate was growing. we were seeing journalists beheaded we were seeing people burned in cages and the threat of Isis was something that was very scary to many Americans and needed to be stopped instability was providing a place for extremists to plan attacks to plan all kinds of terrible things and extremists they were trying to radicalize the next generation, one of the biggest excuses that extremists use to radicalize the next generation is the mosque and the al-aqsa mosque saying that they are being threatened and the fact that muslims cannot pray There, this agreement will allow flights from Dubai and Abu Dhabi to Tel Aviv, allowing Muslims a true gateway to come and visit Israel peacefully and come to pray at the mosque as often as they see fit.

It's a big breakthrough as people go there and pray and see that it's available, they'll share it with their friends and they'll share the experiences, they'll share pictures on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, and people all over the world will do it. to see that the mosque is safe and that all people are welcome there, so this is a big step forward for the region, a big step forward for the country and a big step forward for the world and again I just want to congratulate the three. leaders who worked very hard to make this possible uh prime minister netanyahu of israel crown prince mohammed bin zayed of abu dhabi and president trump here in america thank you very much to jared for that summary and it has been an extraordinary job by several of excellent diplomats working under President Trump's leadership to reach today's outcome.

Jared Kushner has been at the forefront of those efforts, Avi, Brian Hook and others have done tremendous work under the president's direction to get us to where we are. are here today and I know Jared you're not a diplomat, you don't have a titled ambassador title, but we don't have a better ambassador, especially in the region, than advisor Kushner, so thank you for those comments. and for the truly incredible effort, i want to begin by congratulating today the president of the united states, the prime minister of israel, bibi netanyahu, and the crown prince, mohammed bin zayed, this is a remarkable achievement and they have been the achievement that will now be .

They will now be known in history as the Abraham Accords or the Abraham Accords and the Muslim Countries or the Avraham Accords in Israel It is something very special It is something that does not happen very often very few of my predecessors as national security advisor have To be able to come up to this podium to announce a peace agreement in the Middle East is something very rare, as I said before in the Oval Office today, the president will be known in history as one of the change makers and one of the notables. leaders in the Middle East and that's not something you thought about when you took office, but one of your first steps was to repair our relationship with Israel, which had been severely damaged, especially in the last month of the previous administration.

Unheard of: Many presidential candidates two decades ago had promised that if elected they would move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, President Trump had the courage to do so and developed wonderful credibility and a reservoir of goodwill. . In Israel he recognized the Golan Heights as Israeli territory and moved them away from what could have been a very destabilized situation that we have seen develop in Syria. He destroyed the physical caliphate of Isis that Jared had said it was. the size of ohio, it spread throughout the middle east and uh, terrorism was prosecuted, uh, because of the caliphate, it brought justice to al baghdadi, who had killed so many Americans, sotloff, wherler, kasich and foley, had exercised maximum

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ure on Iran and and cut off much of the terrorist financing that was going to proxy wars in Yemen, in Hezbollah, in Lebanon, in Syria, and in the entire region, and today we have the Abraham Accords and he has brought the peace to the Middle East, at least peace between the United Arab Emirates and Israel and uh uh what I said is that the president is often considered the best negotiator and he wrote the book The Art of the Deal and he is considered a great negotiator, which it is, but I think history is going to do it.

Remember the president for being a great peacemaker, he brought peace to Israel and the United Arab Emirates. He has signed an agreement like his diplomats signed a historic body in Afghanistan and I want to remind people that we have not had an American combat casualty in Afghanistan since then. On February 29, he used his offices and

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ure to prevent Idlib from being invaded in Syria and brought a ceasefire agreement when Turkey invaded northern Syria, many people said that when he took office, there would be war in North Korea But through personal diplomacy he has kept that situation from becoming a kinetic event, so it's really remarkable, I think, when you step back and take a look at what this president has done on the peace front, uh and and I wouldn't be surprised if it takes some time in this environment, but I wouldn't be surprised if the president is eventually nominated for a Nobel Prize by the time this work today is an example of why it would be rightly considered. and he should be one of the favorites for the nobel peace prize, so i also want to complement the bravery of mohammed bins.

I had the crown prince. You know, there have been two other great arab leaders, king hussein in my lifetime, king hussein and anwar sadat, uh, who made peace with israel and now mohammed bin zayed enters that pantheon of great brave arab leaders and I want congratulate President Prime Minister Netanyahu in Israel, who was under tremendous pressure to extend Israeli law and sovereignty to parts of the country, but has resisted that political pressure to make peace, something that may have been politically popular, but He put the interests of his country and his people first, so I think we have some very brave leaders who worked with the president to come today to the tremendous historic agreement today, taking a step back from what this means beyond the historic idea of ​​a major Arab country making peace with Israel all these years after 1948.

It makes sense on so many different levels. The United Arab Emirates and Israel are both capable. security partners of the United States and close partners of ours in the region that are confronting Iran that are confronting Islamic extremism, that the peace agreement between these two countries will encourage and foster cooperation in those efforts, these are very innovative countries. Israel is, it's called the startup nation and for those of you who have been there, it feels like you're driving through Palo Alto across half the country. The United Arab Emirates is also a very innovative country. Unite those two nations.

We are going to create a dynamic of innovation and creativity in the region and both countries are populated by incredibly dynamic people, enormous opportunities are going to arise from this agreement. Jared talked about the idea of ​​Arab pilgrims and Muslim pilgrims going to the al-Aqsa mosque going up the mountain and having the opportunity to pray in peace in Israel, as you know, the president has made religious freedom, especially religious freedom in the Middle East, a focal point of their foreign policy and this is a big step towards uh uh fulfilling the idea that the three great religions that came from the holy city, Christianity, Judaism and Islam, will be able to pray and interact peacefully together in that beautiful city of Jerusalem, tourism with Abu Dhabi, Dubai and the othersemirates have become meccas for tourism, especially before the chinese virus, the greed virus, uh, israel is a great land for tourism, uh, which will expand trade between the UAE and Israel, which have incredible economies and again as we.As we recover from covid, this agreement will help the economies of those countries and the countries in the region to expand and I think we will see an increase in jobs in all three countries as a result of these agreements regarding peace. overall process, we have a great team, that team will be deployed, we will be working on the phones, we will be in the region and we believe that there are other countries waiting in the wings.

They are going to watch and see how the tremendous response to the courage of Prime Minister Netanyahu and the crown prince has been received by their people and by the world. I mean, I've already been on the phone with several Europeans. counterparts who have called us to congratulate us on our role in this agreement, but some of whom are amazed that this has happened and we also think that this could lead to a lot for the Palestinian people, so it is a people that President Trump, of the United States, has not forgotten and has supported a two-state solution.

He wants to see the Palestinian people in a prosperous country of their own and the foundations have been laid for that so I think we will work very hard on those efforts in the coming months and years so again today is a great day it is a great day for the people of the United Arab Emirates, it is a great day for the people of Israel, for its leaders. and it is also a great day for the united states of america as we play a role that we have traditionally played around the world and we came to mediate in difficult situations and we achieved peace and we achieved prosperity for our friends and neighbors and over and over again Once again I am honored to be part of the president's team on this and again and again we will end with congratulations to the president for his leadership and again to Prime Minister Netanyahu and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed.

Thank you very much, you will start with Steve agreed to suspend his annexation plan in the West Bank so that the suspension lasts. It will take a while for these agreements to be fully implemented and work, and I think that is the focus right now. What Israel is going to apply is to build this relationship, the opportunities that are now created because of this from an investment point of view, from an innovation point of view, from a health point of view, from tourism point of view and, most importantly, for both. The countries from a security point of view are very strong and I think in the foreseeable future we will see both countries focusing on that.

I also think that Israel sees many interesting opportunities in doing what is being done today with other Arab countries. and Muslim countries as well, so that's really going to be the focus as to where we're going to work with them and you know, one thing I also want to do is recognize the tremendous team that has worked on this to date, obviously, Secretary Pompeo has been leading the efforts, the vice president has been very supportive and then obviously avi berkowitz and brian hook have been tremendous along the way both in getting to today and in the steps that will probably be taken, so they are already promoting this as a good step forward, but Palestinian officials are already criticizing it.

If they don't agree, how is this a good agreement at this time? So look, they have a pretty predictable response that we've seen time and time again. all kinds of things that help improve the lives of your people, let's focus on the facts of what's happening and let's focus on how to move things forward. We presented a very detailed 180 page plan that we got Israel to agree to negotiate on the basis that they invest 50 billion dollars in their economy that allows them to double their GDP in 10 years that they can create a million new jobs that help their people to have a much better standard of living.

We also got Israel to agree to self-determination. a safe environment and then, on top of that, figuring out how to create the right land, the right land, an outcome where we can move forward, so look, I think a lot of people in the region are seeing that we can't wait for the Palestinian leaders to deal with To solve this, each country will do what is best for its interests, what is best for the interests of the region and we have big problems in the world and we cannot stay stuck in the past, we have to move forward now I will just say that a big Part of what motivated the United Arab Emirates to move forward at this time and take the risk that they are taking is the notion that they did not want to see Israel take the provocative action of applying sovereignty to areas of the West Bank, which will hopefully allow Palestinian leaders have more room to come to the table and reach an agreement, so I don't know if it will happen tomorrow.

I don't know if it will happen next month. I do not know if. It will happen next year, but at some point you always learn with agreements that there is something called gravity and right now you are in a situation where Israel has said it is open to making peace and many people in the region have supported it. . The vision that the president laid out, one thing that you have seen with the president, is a president who makes deals, and part of being a negotiator is not always showing his cards again. We were able to keep this quiet until this morning, when he announced it the president had a very solid strategy for the Middle East that we have been executing piece by piece day after day and we have seen that things have been improving the problems have been resolved the president you've been taking things off the table uh you We know that sacrificing sacred cows was what was holding people back so if you look at today's snapshot and you look back at the snapshot of where the president was when it started you have a Medium Very different East and that's not by accident, so I think.

Over time we are going to continue to ask ourselves two questions regarding that number one conflict: Are we doing things that allow Israel to be more secure or less secure for the Israeli people, who are the United States' strongest ally in the region? With this step, the United Arab Emirates joins together. a very exclusive club and becomes one of the United States' closest allies in the region and then number two is: are we taking steps that will allow the Palestinian people to live a better life? So, you know, there are a lot of people who find historical traps in which they can find excuses not to move forward, but President Trump is focused on creating a bright future focused on progress and improving people's lives, so today I will say that this is a great advance, this is something that is public, we have a lot.

There are a lot of things that are happening privately right now that are quite exciting and I think again that in the coming years, if the president can follow through, we will see some historic changes in the region that will really make the world a much safer place. and better thank you thank you I appreciate it uh actually when I ask you uh advisor o'brien uh you mentioned anwar sadat and I'm curious if you see or imagine a kind of sadat uh megan carter photo of a moment like that for the leaders because that It's something I think people remember.

I want to say it was 79, but going back to then, no, I think we'll have a formal signing ceremony at the White House and we'll have to see who. It comes from several countries, but I hope that Prime Minister Netanyahu is here and that the crown prince or one of his other princes is probably here in Washington and I think it's going to be a great day and so I really uh uh I I I, as you know, I don't normally talk. of things that were said in the presidential phone calls, but one of the leaders said that we have had a difficult 2020 and this is the best.

The news of the year, it really is good news, it is great news for the American people and it has been great to see how the press has reacted in a somewhat polarized time. I think this is one of those stories that everyone, regardless of their political position, uh. there are lines in that kind of thing, everyone is excited about the fact that an Arab government, a Muslim Arab, is making peace with Israel on a big day and we would love to welcome them here at the White House. I think the president would very much like to receive them.

So I think we'll have an event at some point in the not-too-distant future. I could continue with something you mentioned before. You talked about visionary leadership not only in the region but in general, including the president to do something. for this to happen, it actually seemed quite positive, although perhaps cryptically, that perhaps something could soon happen again to keep this momentum going towards another country, do you get the feeling that yes, there is a good chance that we could have an announcement similar here in the next? let's say 90 days 80 days, I think there are many possibilities now.

One thing I will say about the president is that one of the things you see in great leaders is a sense of optimism and the president is a great leader for the country because he always wants to present a positive front and get people to do more than what they are capable of doing and helping people achieve things that people don't think are possible, so their optimism is one of their great traits as a Leader, I will say here that we have had several discussions, obviously, in some way We stopped those discussions because it seemed like this one was underway and it was very important for the United Arab Emirates to be the first to want to make history and do it, but we have several others that we have had conversations with and now we will continue those discussions to see if we can continue to move forward. further.

Look at the end of the day, it's inevitable. People in the world want to move forward. The Middle East has to fend for itself. We have some great allies there. We will continue to work with them and help them, but we would like to see a security architecture and an economic architecture where people have the security and ability to live a better life have jobs have prosperity and people need to believe that their children could have a better life than them and once that happens people will choose a job instead of some of the other less good areas that The extremists are tempting them to go to.

Thank you. A couple of questions. You mentioned flights first. Can you tell us how quickly you expect those flights to start opening embassies and to what extent this strategy is partly strategy? and I hope that Iran will become even more isolated. I think Iran is Iran if they want to move forward again. The president has been very clear that he is not going to pay for a meeting, but he is always happy to talk to people and that is part of his ability to make deals. and that is why again he was able to make this deal, he was able to make the deal for OPEC and he was also able to make the agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada, he made the trade agreement with Japan, the agreement with Korea, he was able to get FIFA. 2026, the 2028 Olympics, the president is a negotiator so he will always be flexible, I think seeing the two best armies in the region come together should be something that people take note of because it shows that again people are calculated. how can they optimize and I think Iran has benefited from a kind of divide and conquer through their proxies, they have tried to create instability and they have tried to divide the Middle East, that is why they have always taken advantage of the Palestinian issue and have tried to stoke fear around that issue and have used it to prevent people from joining Israel.

You know, no Israeli has ever killed an Emirati. Right there, there is no such hatred between the people, so it doesn't make sense, so I think we will start to see interactions very quickly and that both countries are very motivated both from an economic point of view and from a tourist point of view from the point of view of health from a technological point of view. point of view to start moving forward very quickly if I could follow up with you have you been in the headlines recently um just to give you a chance to respond can you tell us why you met with Kanye West?

Did you discuss the topic? election in any capacity so Kanye has been a friend of mine for about 10 years and you know we talk from time to time about different things and we both happen to be in Colorado so we got together and had a big discussion about a lot of things , he has great ideas for what he would like to see happen in the country and that is why he has the candidacy that he has been doing, but again, there are many issues that the champion of the president he admires and it was great to have a friendly discussion thank you just to follow up on steve's question netanyahu just gave a live speech tonight and he said we received a request to temporarily wait for annexation from president trump.

You said that since a temporary postponement is not taken off the table, I am telling you how long is temporary because you said it could be a long time and you got assurances that they will adhere to that somewhere between a long time and a short time, That's what temporary means, but it's important that you know how long temporary is. He says it's not ruled out, it's not canceled, it's just being postponed. Look, our conversations with the Prime Minister have been very extensivefor the last three and a half years. We have a lot of trust between Israel and the United States.

We have done many historic things together. The people of Israel trust that President Trump will make the right decisions. decisions that are in the best interest of Israel's security and prosperity, and obviously Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump have a very close relationship. I think they will not take steps to move forward unless there is an understanding between the United States and Israel that it is the right action. at the right time over and over again you know it's not a binary thing to move forward or not, there's a lot of details, there's a lot of things that need to be considered and we had a lot of those discussions over the next few months and then obviously we put those discussions on hold when This came up, so I imagine at some point in the future this is something that will be discussed, but today is a great day, this is a breakthrough, this is a turning point for Israel, it is a turning point for the half.

East and it's a game changer for the world, so I think for the moment people will focus on that and focus on how to optimize that tremendous opportunity. Can I just do it? Did you discuss the campaign? His campaign with uh Kanye West. one more general discussion about politics, let me ask you about a different deal, one here in Washington, the Democrats-Republicans are two and a half trillion dollars apart. From your point of view, do you think it's possible that a phase four agreement can be reached at this point by working with the president? Trump over the last five years on the campaign and through the administration, I would just say that with President Trump anything is possible, so you never know that the president has accomplished a lot of things that people thought would never be accomplished and, uh, but To comment specifically on the agreement, I will leave that to the negotiators, as it appears we have exhausted questions on this topic.

I'm going to pass it on to haley. Thank you Iran. The administration has basically revived a UN Security Council resolution to extend the arms embargo on Iran, but it is In short, a lot of tough language on Iran has been lost, but there is still the danger of a veto by Russia and China, so some observers say the administration risks losing faith if it can't gain support for this deal. Can you comment on this? Well, the first thing is we're always going to do the right thing, obviously the administration and President Trump are always going to do the right thing, whether it's losing face or there's a Russian veto or a Chinese veto if the Chinese or the Russians veto. the continuation of the arms embargo I want to start sending weapons to Iran and destabilize the region that is above them and not above us, so we will always take the right position and not worry about what the Russians or what the Chinese might do At the UN if we did it, if we worried about it all the time, we wouldn't get anything done at the UN.

We also have other tools that we will use to deal with Iran and make sure those weapons don't. flow under Iran that there is no more destabilization of the region, they are tools that we can use diplomatically and there are other tools that we have and no one in the region wants to see Iran on the receiving end of a group of Russian or Chinese immigrants. Chinese missiles or drones, the region has made it very clear, we have made it very clear, Israel has made it very clear, so I don't think that is in the interest of anyone in the world, it is not in the interest of global peace and security and prosperity, so that we will continue to pursue our case at the UN, we will hope for the best, I hope the Russians and the Chinese do the right thing, they should do the right thing and if they do, Not do the right thing, well, we have backup steps that we will take.

Snapback, without a doubt, one of the tools we could use and that is something we are looking at very closely. I wouldn't digress, look, what we're focused on now is the vote to extend the arms embargo. We would like a clean renewal of the arms embargo. We would like to see our allies support it. We would like to see the Russians and the Chinese back it up. I simply cannot imagine any leader anywhere in the world thinking it is a good idea to put advanced weaponry in the hands of the Ayatollah and his regime, especially in today's Middle East.

I mean, that doesn't make any sense. So hopefully the countries in the UN, the Security Council will do the right thing, they will lift the arms embargo and keep it in place, but if that doesn't happen, we will have to take the necessary steps and One of those steps could be a snapback Many thanks to Senior Advisor Jared Kushner and Ambassador O'Brien. I will answer some of his questions on other matters. Do you have any? Yes, thanks. Caitlyn, the president. She has written Mirada to give five states $100 reimbursement for national guard costs facing the coronavirus. Several governors are also trying to get on that list, including Nevada Gov.

Steve Sissellach. Have you had the opportunity to schedule a time for them? to speak and the national governors association says they say the criteria for being one of those states that gets 100 and not 75 is unclear, can you tell me how the cut is made where it's 100 and not 75 percent? So let's first leave I note that in March President Trump became the first president to authorize the use of the national guard under title 32 with 100 percent cost sharing. The president supports the men and women of our national guard. This is a tool that is rarely used, but the president was willing to do it. take this decisive action, 75 percent cost sharing still provides states with tremendous unprecedented support and states can use dollars from their coronavirus relief fund to cover the remaining 25 percent if they need it.

Specifically, some states brought direct cases to the president and him. I'm obligated to support them 100, but I won't go state by state to see where things are. Can you explain why some states responded yes? Question about the payroll data and the president's comments yesterday, what did he mean when he said he was going to fire? the payroll tax and a secondary question if he is re-elected, what should Americans believe about his commitment to Social Security? Yes, he has an unwavering commitment to social security, making sure it is fully funded and our seniors are cared for. I've heard it.

I expressed that in private and in public countless times. What he meant yesterday was that he wants permanent condonation of the postponement. Of course, he has deferred the payroll tax until the end of the year and wants to make that a permanent forgiveness of the deferral. It's coming next year because it's very important specifically for low- and middle-income Americans because it's a long-term regressive tax, but do you think the payroll tax should go away? The president is very clear on this issue: he wants a permanent forgiveness of the deferral, um, that's as far as he's gone and he's gone even further to say that he will make sure that social security is fully funded. of his top people have voted on it, why is he trying to prevent ordinary Americans from voting by mail?

So first let me point out that I voted absentee, the president's absentee votes have always been in favor of absentee voting for a reason, what he's not around for is mass mailing. in voting or perhaps to make it even clearer, mass mail-in voting in which everyone on the voter rolls receives a mail-in ballot. The voting rolls in Los Angeles County, for example, have one hundred and seventeen percent of the county registered to vote, how does that make sense? That's not the case and that would mean that at least seventeen percent of the ballots out there would be subject to possible fraud, so that's what the president is strongly opposed to, but he's always been in favor of absenteeism for a reason that today we learned that approximately 15 and a half million Americans are still out of work Nancy pelosi spoke yesterday with the

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of the treasury apparently there was no progress on that call for the 15 and a half million Americans and millions of others who don't care at all the politics of it all.

Tell them what's next, considering that nothing seems to be moving in terms of policy going forward, yeah, what I would say is this, you know, Secretary Mnuchin said yesterday that I'm willing to move forward with legislation that provides funds to schools, child care, food, vaccines. hospitals ppp for small businesses rental assistance airports broadband state and local government assistance and liability protection for colleges and businesses has been unmistakable this administration has in this president we are willing to move forward on that what we are not willing to do uh It's a gigantic $3.4 trillion deal that Democrats put forward that wasn't fundamentally serious and would have made vote harvesting commonplace.

It was a wish list for Democrats. That is what we will not move forward with, but this president of all people has taken serious measures. action on eviction protection serious action on unemployment insurance on a payroll tax cut student loan forgiveness in his executive capacity and what I would say, the state of affairs now is you have nancy pelosi saying we were willing to go down a trillion if they came raise a trillion, well it's fundamentally unserious because the Democrats that the chief of staff told me didn't even tell us what they would get out of the trillion so they said we would go down a trillion but they wouldn't list the things they would get out of their Democratic wish list, so Nancy Pelosi needs to come back from recess and negotiate because the American people deserve better conservatives who have argued that three trillion dollars or so have already been spent and no more needs to be spent. spend if there is no agreement that is viable is the position of the white house that since three trillion has been spent that is fine, we do not need to spend more, the president cares about what is best for the families of the United States that he wants see funding for our schools direct payments to Americans, has protected the American people in every way possible in their executive capacity, but as you pointed out in terms of, the fiscal cost of things and the height of this when the economy shut down , a two trillion dollar deal was negotiated, after that when the economy reopened it was a trillion dollar deal, so for Democrats to say we want more than what we negotiated and approved during an economic shutdown and saying we need 3.4 trillion is really a non-serious proposition kevin thanks kaley uh your reaction to unemployment claims falling below a million 1.7 1.7 million new jobs too and the blue state governors are politicizing the school closings says the president, what did he mean by that, yes, what What this means is that when you look around the world, many countries in the Western world have opened their schools and we, as the United States, can do the same.

We can find a way that the president, the White House, has published guidance on how to do the same thing. that happens I mean he doesn't want a child a decision that is so important for our children to be politicized because he believes it is in the public health interest for the child to return to school and I have listed it for you um all the reasons for that previously um and what was your first question about your job applications falling below a million uh how surprised are you that that's the number and the direction we're going?

It doesn't surprise me because under this president he was the one who had great jobs. The president brought us the greatest economy in modern history once and will do it again, and this is further proof of that: seeing jobless claims fall below one million after a July jobs report that beat expectations and Of course, both. reports of blockbuster jobs before it goes in line with manufacturing ism, good numbers we saw and many other metrics, this is the president who is already making sure that we have an economic rebound that surpasses Europe and other countries. Has the president been informed about the Russian coronavirus vaccine he does not believe is a viable vaccine.

The president has also been briefed on the progress of our own vaccine on one thing to keep in mind and I think Dr. Fauci made this point: Our vaccines go through a rigorous phase three clinical trial. where we have 30,000 people that we test to make sure that they are perfectly healthy and moving forward, so that's the kind of standard that we have for American vaccines and it's important that we do that, but I think we will have a vaccine by the end of year and the president before that is manufacturing hundreds of millions of doses of these vaccines in anticipation of one being successful chanel thank you haley um going back to Iran and Russia as geopolitical actors in the Middle East there have been sources of instability there as we discussed, butHow confident this White House is that Iran and Russia will finally be put in their respective lanes with the arrival of this deal and the deals to come.

Look, we think there's a big contrast here and where. This administration remains and the previous administration and when you look at the um, excuse me, the Obama Biden administration reached out to the enemies of the United States, the Iran deal was atrocious, we know that there were cash payments to Iran and what this president has done is diametrically opposite. work with our allies work with Israel negotiate a historic peace agreement the likes of which has not been seen in a quarter of a century, so when you work with our allies when you engage in diplomacy when you have a great negotiator as president you get agreements like these We saw it today and it is a stark contrast to what we saw in the previous administration.

Yes, does the president share the former vice president?Biden's view that annexation would virtually end any possibility of a two-state solution that would secure Israel's future as a Jewish and democratic state and defend the right of the Palestinians to establish the State of peace in the Middle East, I would refer you to the nsc on that, but today we are focusing on the historic agreement that has been made. Yes, was the president aware of these 2,000 letters between him and Chairman Kim that are apparently going to be published in the new The Book of Bob Woodward, did he approve of that?

I haven't even looked into that or talked to him about it. Today we are focused on providing aid to the American people and the historic agreement. Mario, thank you. The president's executive order on WeChat. block Apple from distributing that app on its platform, and if so, what does the administration say about concerns that it could be hurting an American company and diminishing its competitiveness? So the only comments I have for you today on tick tac and wechat is this, the president. signed those two executive orders exercising its authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to address threats posed by tick tock and wechat, the administration is committed to protecting the American people from all cyber threats and these applications collect significant amounts of data private information about users and the People's Republic of China can access and use such information, and tick tock has a documented history of censoring free speech to conform to CCP propaganda and we take Americans' data very seriously.

Another thing I wanted to clarify is that Speaker Pelosi has been fundamentally unserious in these negotiations and engaging in blatant partisanship one thing he said recently is that he needs a three-point bill of $3.5 billion with a b for election funding. , which is a fundamentally unserious rationale, I asked why I spoke to the Office of Management and Budget, they said that states have received more than $1.2 billion in election assistance grants since fiscal year 2018 and we estimate that they have spent less than a sixth of those funds in these three years and still have more than a billion of those funds available right now. they have not been spent, so we encourage president pelosi to follow the suggestion of congressman ro khanna of his own party, who said that i think congress should be in session.

I think it's absurd for Congress to take a break during a pandemic. and a national crisis, I can tell you that one person who has not been on a break is this president bringing relief to the American people. Thank you and will be here at 5:30. Thank you so much.