PRESS
BRIEFINGS
Press
Gaggle by Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley
Issued on: July 31, 2018
Aboard Air Force One
En Route Tampa, Florida
5:00 P.M. EDT
MR. GIDLEY: Thanks, everybody.
I want to start with a statement on the plastic gun issue. The President
is committed to the safety and security of all Americansand considers this
his highest responsibility. In the United States, it’s currently
illegal to own or make a wholly plastic gun of any kind, including those made
on a 3D printer. The administration supports this nearly two-decade-old
law, and will continue to look at all options available to us to do what is
necessary to protectAmericans while also supporting the First and Second
Amendments.
With that, I’ll open it up for questions.
Q Has he spoken to the
NRA about this?
MR. GIDLEY: His tweet said yes, so
I’d refer you back to that.
Q Does he support the
plans being made available, the blueprints being made available for these guns?
MR. GIDLEY: Again, the statement is
what the statement is, and I refer you back to that and his previous comments
on the matter on Twitter.
Q Can you tell us
anything more about his conversation with the NRA and what was said?
MR. GIDLEY: I can’t get into the
private conversation. The President knows it’s a serious issue, and he
wants to protect all Americans. That’s an oath he took.
And he’s looking into the matter. And when we have more, we’ll let you know.
Q Does the White
House have any response to Facebook’s statement earlier today about the
midterm elections?
MR. GIDLEY: I do. The
President has made it clear that his administration will not tolerate foreign
interference in our electoral process from any nation-state or other malicious
actors. The NSC has put out a statement on this matter, and I refer you
to that statement in its entirety.
Q On the government
shutdown, the President has talked about not caring about
the political implications. That gives us a sense that maybe
he’s talking about a shutdown before the elections. Does the President
want a shutdown before November? Is he willing to draw a red line on
spending in September?
MR. GIDLEY: I just spoke to him
about the issue, and he was very clear with me: What he wants is our
immigration laws fixed. He wants a lasting solution so that we’re not in
the same boat five years down the road. He wants Democrats to come to the
table and stop playing politics with people’s lives. And he said, whether
a shutdown happens before or after the elections, his focus is getting the
problem fixed. It’s been a 40-year problem in the making. It’s been
dumped on his plate. He wants to fix it.
But when Democrats in Congress refuse to
even have a discussion on the issue — and you know this back from the Schumer
shutdown at the beginning of the year — the President laid out his
pillars. Those pillars still exist, the four pillars — the wall, ending
chain migration and the visa lottery, and closing loopholes. And he still
holds that position today. He thinks that will fix the issue.
But when Democrats, for example, come out
and say wild things, like abolishing ICE is part of fixing this problem, that’s
just lunacy at the highest level. Any Democrat calling for the abolition
of ICE either has no clue what ICE actually does or has decided to ignore the
safety and security of their own constituents and, quite frankly, their own
families.
ICE is on the frontlines of child
smuggling, drug smuggling, human trafficking, and commercial airline
travel. Just in the fiscal year of 2017, they arrested 48,000 criminal
aliens for assaults; 12,000 for sexual offenses; 2,000 homicides; 4,500 gang
members, they arrested — 1,000 of those, just about, were MS-13 members.
The President has been clear that he
stands with those hardworking men and women — you heard him yesterday with
Prime Minister Conte — who go into these dens of evil and death. And
Democrats, for some inexplicable reason, won’t come to the table to discuss
this, won’t cast a vote in support of ICE, and instead would rather stand with
MS-13, whose motto is “kill, rape, and control.” It makes no sense.
The President wants this fixed, and he wants it fixed immediately.
Q So the President is
blaming Democrats for not taking action on this issue, but the reality is
Republicans control Congress. Is he worried about what this would mean
for his party in the midterms if there is a shutdown?
MR. GIDLEY: Well,
the political reality exists that we don’t have enough votes, as
Republicans in the Senate, to get something passed. You’ve got to have
several Democrats come onboard to get something accomplished. Right now,
we’ve seen no movement and no budge from the Democrats whatsoever, except to
demagogue the issue, spread lies about people who put their lives on the line —
men and women — every day to protect Americans.
And quite frankly, the President is sick
and tired of it. He wants this thing fixed. He put out a 70-plus
page immigration fix resolution plan last year. I believe it was October
of last year. We went through this fight at the beginning of the
year. Democrats chose to shut down the government over it, and they have
yet to explain — Democrats at large — why they would rather stand with hundreds
of thousands of people who are here illegally and unlawfully as opposed to
hundreds of millions of American citizens. That’s where the
battle line is drawn here, and the President wants the lasting solution,
because immigration, as he has said many times, is a national security issue.
Q But is he worried that
there’s going to be political fallout for his party?
MR. GIDLEY: I’m sorry?
Q Is he worried that
there would be — there could be political fallout, though, for his
party?
MR. GIDLEY: There’s much more at
stake here than political fallout. This is about protecting a
country, protecting a nation. These crimes are 100 percent
preventable. People know it. It’s a 70/30 issue, an 80/20 issue
depending on which questions you ask and the depending on the specificity of
the issue.
The American people stand with
the President on this. He got elected largely on conversations about
cracking down and closing loopholes and fixing our immigration system, and we
expect Democrats to come along to protect theAmerican citizens.
Q Hogan, are you saying
the President is probably not going to force a shutdown before the election?
MR. GIDLEY: The President is clear
he wants it fixed. Now, what form that takes, whether the government
shuts down or not, I’m not going to get ahead of anything he would do.
I’m not going to get into a hypothetical. He’s spoken to this several
times. He’s tweeted about it. And I refer you back to those
statements.
Q The White
House talks about immigrants who talk a lot about rapists and
murderers. What percentage of immigrants to this country do you think are
actually criminals?
MR. GIDLEY: I’m pretty sure
DHS has the most up-to-date numbers and statistical data on that.
Q Is it a lot? A
little?
MR. GIDLEY: I’m not sure about
the actual percentage as it relates to what you would consider a lot or a
little — you personally. What I can tell you is, as I mentioned before in
this gaggle, these crimes are 100 percent preventable. We already have
our own criminals in this country. We don’t need to import more.
Q Hogan, you said this
is a 70/30, 80/20 issue. But the President’s four pillars have gotten
votes in the House and in the Senate. You weren’t able to get a majority
in the House even though you have a majority of Republicans. You weren’t
even able to get 50 votes in the Senate even though you have 50 Republican senators.
So why go through this issue again? And since you’ve already gotten your
votes, it appears that the representatives of the Americanpeople do not
support this policy.
MR. GIDLEY: Well, they’ve completely
— Congress and the Senate has complained on why this issue hadn’t been
fixed. But you’re proving my point and you’re proving the point of the
President when he said many times this is a congressional issue. They’ve
got to fix this. This doesn’t fall in line with the executive branch.
It’s something that President Obama even admitted to, even though he
tried to create law out of whole cloth.
And if they have a problem, then they need
to go ahead and propose something that will get passed themselves. The
President has been clear about what he wants. Those pillars haven’t
changed in a year and half he’s been in office because that would provide a
lasting solution to the issue.
This isn’t a new thing. We’ve been
dealing with this for 40 years. Now is the time to fix it. The
President wants it done.
Q Is the President
seeking an additional $100 million in tax cuts for billionaires — the
billionaires and millionaires — and in a way that would bypass Congress?
MR. GIDLEY: No. In fact,
there’s been a great deal of issue — of interest in this provision for a long
time. Treasury is currently evaluating the economic impact to see whether
or not it requires any legislation. But anything further on the matter,
I’d have to refer you to Treasury.
Q Any lines of
communication open with Iran since yesterday? Any — is the
President still willing to meet with the Iranian leader, no
preconditions?
MR. GIDLEY: That’s not
changed. But he’s been clear on what he wants from Iran,and that is
to end its destabilization efforts, its actions of being the world’s largest
state sponsor of terror. And he’s been tough on Iran for that
very reason. He got out of the Iran Deal, which, as we all now
see, wasn’t actually preventing a pathway for Iran to get a nuclear
weapon, but instead was paving it.
He joined with some of our partners and
allies for a targeted strike against Syria,which is one
of Iran’s allies as well. We’ve ramped up sanctions
on Iran, and we’ve bolstered some of our partnerships to try and put
more pressure on Iran.
So this continues. But as he said
yesterday in the bilateral press conference, that he does want to meet, he
wants to come to a solution. And when we have an announcement, we’ll let
you know.
Q Can I ask you one more
thing? Over the past few days, he’s been tweeting about journalists being
an enemy of the people. A handful of journalists were killed, I think
maybe six weeks ago, in their newsroom doing their jobs. Why does the
President continue to call journalists the enemy of the people?
MR. GIDLEY: Well, those two things
weren’t linked at all. That was a workplace violence issue, as I
recall. The individual was obviously troubled and was upset at the
workplace. It has nothing to do with the President.
But he’s also been clear —
President Trump — that 90 percent of the coverage or more has been
negative against him. It seems as though no matter how good the news is,
the press refused to cover it that way, and it’s quite frustrating for him when
he comes in and the detractors before his election were saying the economy would
tank and go into a death spiral that it couldn’t recover from, and instead the
exact opposite has happened. He’s basically defeated ISIS.
They’re crushed in a way they weren’t under the previous administration, who,
quite frankly, with his head in the sand, Barack Obama called them
the “JV team.”
So the success has continued for this
President, but the coverage continues to be negative. And that’s
frustrating for him, and I think it would be frustrating for anybody.
Q Hogan —
Q How closely — sorry,
Jennifer. Go ahead. Jennifer, go ahead.
Q No, no — I just — are
you going to — if that’s leading onto this question, it’s fine.
Q Go ahead.
Q But I just wanted to
ask about the new reports about North Korea developing missiles,
continuing business as usual. Has the President had any talks with any
people over there? What’s the situation in understanding that?
MR. GIDLEY: I can’t get into the
conversations, obviously, with our officials or with the President, and
potential conversations he may or may not have with North Korea. And
I’m also not going to confirm or deny those reports.
But look, the President has seen some
successes coming out of that meeting, and we know them — with the four
detainees that were returned; North Korea not firing off a missile, a
rocket, in nine months; doing so many other things that is moving toward what
the President ultimately wanted from that meeting, which is complete,
verifiable, irreversible denuclearization. But it’s going to take some
time.
The President has been encouraged also by
the fact that North Korea did return the remains to this country —
people who fought for this country and died for this country. And those
are all efforts in good faith. But the President has been clear-eyed on
this matter, and more has to be done. And we’ll give you updates as we
can give them.
Q How closely is he
tracking the Manafort trial?
MR. GIDLEY: I haven’t spoken with
him about that, and obviously I’d have to refer you to outside counsel for any
of those matters.
Q Why is
Eric Trump on this trip?
MR. GIDLEY: I don’t know.
Q Why is
Ivanka Trump on this trip?
MR. GIDLEY: Part of what we’re
talking about in Florida, I know, is one of the big issues with the Perkins
Act, the billion dollars per year for workforce development. That’s one
of the things Ivanka has been working so tirelessly on, the successes of that
piece of legislation, which was passed in 2009 but remain dormant until this
President came along. And now, for the first time ever, we have more job
openings than we have people to fill them. And so, many people in this
country need to be trained, and because they’ve been block-granted, the states
— which is the brilliance of it — is that — know what workers need in Maryland
are not the same thing that workers need in Mississippi. And what workers
need in Colorado aren’t the same things that workers need in California.
So Florida is one of the leaders in the
country on infrastructure projects, and so we came down here today to talk
about that and to tout the Perkins Act to try and retrain some of the workers
down here, just to continue the economic successes and growth put forth by the
administration.
Q Hogan, speaking just
generally, is it a crime to collude with a foreign government to interfere with
a U.S. election?
MR. GIDLEY: I’m not an
attorney. I’d have to refer you to either in-house counsel for that
question or to outside counsel in Rudy Giuliani.
Q (Inaudible)
Congressman Gaetz was on the flight. Do you have any other members of
Congress who are joining us here?
MR. GIDLEY: Nothing I can share at
this time. But I’ll get you guys some information on that.
END
5:14 P.M. EDT
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