Return to Transcripts main page

The Lead with Jake Tapper

Trump Holds First News Conference Since Impeachment Inquiry. Aired 4:30-5p ET

Aired September 25, 2019 - 16:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[16:30:01]

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Other than that, we weren't too busy over the last three days.

And, unfortunately, the press doesn't even cover it. We have -- we have made some fantastic deals, like with Japan. For farmers, we have a tremendous trade deal with Japan.

And that doesn't get covered, because you waste your time on nonsense.

The PMI manufacturers index is -- has gone substantially up, which was an incredible -- Larry Kudlow, wherever you may be -- Larry, please stand up. He just gave me these numbers.

And existing new home sales are through the roof. Just came out. Oil prices have gone down ever since the Saudi Arabia incident. And they have gone down very substantially. So we have plenty of oil.

But those numbers were surprising to Larry and the extent of the increase.

Is that a correct statement?

So, thank you, Larry Kudlow.

We think we will make this little announcement to you, because important. The so-called whistle-blower, that one that didn't have any first-class or first-rate or second-tier information, from what I understand -- you will have to figure that out for yourself.

But I have spoken with Leader Kevin McCarthy and the Republicans, many of them. And we were going to do this anyway, but I have informed them, all of the House members, that I fully support transparency on the so-called whistle-blower information, even though it was supposedly secondhand information, which is sort of interesting.

And other things have come out about the whistle-blower that are also maybe even more interesting.

But also insist on transparent see from Joe Biden and his son Hunter on the millions of dollars that have been quickly and easily taken out of Ukraine and China, millions of dollars, millions and millions of dollars taken out very rapidly, while he was vice president. And I think they should have transparency for that. I have informed the leader about that.

And, additionally, I demand transparency from Democrats who went to Ukraine and attempted to force the new president, who I met and is an outstanding person I just met a little while ago -- some of you were there.

I think he's going to be outstanding. He got elected on the basis of corruption. He wants to end corruption in Ukraine. And I think that's great.

But they went there, and they wanted to force the new president to do things that they wanted, under the form of political threat. They threatened him if he didn't do things.

Now, that's what they're accusing me of, but I didn't do it. I didn't threaten anybody.

In fact, the press was asking questions of the president of Ukraine. And he said no pressure. I used the word pressure. I think he used the word push, but he meant pressure, but it's the same thing.

No push, no pressure, no nothing.

It's all a hoax, folks. It's all a big hoax. And the sad thing about this hoax is that we work so hard with all of these countries. And I mean really hard. This has been -- I have been up from early in the morning to late in the evening, and meeting with different countries, all for the good of our country.

And the press doesn't even cover all of this. And it's -- it's really disappointing also to those countries that are with us and spend so much time with us.

So, we want transparency. We have informed Kevin McCarthy about transparency. And we said, vote for it.

So I think you have will close to 100 percent of the Republican votes, I hope. And it got almost no attention, but, in May, CNN reported that Senators Robert Menendez, Richard Durbin, and Patrick Leahy wrote a letter to Ukraine's prosecutor general expressing concern at the closing of four investigations they said were critical.

In the letter, they implied that their support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine was at stake, and that if they didn't do the right thing, they wouldn't get any assistance. Gee, doesn't that sound familiar? Doesn't that sound familiar?

And Chris Murphy, who I have been dealing with on guns, so nice, he's always, oh, no, we want to work it out, we want to work at it.

But they're too busy wasting their time on the witch-hunt. So, Senator Chris Murphy literally threatened the president of Ukraine that, if he doesn't do things right, they won't have Democrat support in Congress. [16:35:03]

So you're going to look at all of this up.

One other thing. I'm just going off certain notes and elements of what we have been doing over the last three days. But this just came up a few minutes ago.

The Amazon "Washington Post" just put out a fake article that Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, who I have gotten to know -- and he's a tough cookie -- and I was surprised, I was shocked to hear this -- was going to quit, blaming the White House for something that they wouldn't let him talk openly, freely.

And I was shocked, because I know Joe, and he's tough, tough guy. And I was really surprised to hear he was going to quit. Before I could even either talk to him or talk to anybody else, he put out a statement. I didn't speak to Joe yet.

But he said, "At no time have I considered resigning my position." In other words, the story in "The Washington Post" was a fake. "At no time have I considered resigning my position since assuming this role on August 16, 2019. I have never quit anything in my life. And I'm not going to start now. I'm committed to leading the intelligence community to address the diverse and complex threats facing our nation."

That's from the acting director of national intelligence, a very good man, Joseph Maguire.

So, we're having a great period of time. Our country is the strongest it's ever been. Economically, our numbers are phenomenal.

Wilbur, thank you, and Larry, everybody.

The numbers are phenomenal. Our economy is the strongest in the world. We're the largest economy in the world. Had my opponent won, we would be second right now, because China was catching us so rapidly, we would have been second by this time.

And unless somebody does a very poor job as president, we're going to be first for a long way, because we have picked up trillions and trillions of dollars in value and worth of our country, and China has lost trillions and trillions of dollars and millions of jobs and their supply chain. And they want to make a deal.

This year, America came to the United Nations stronger than we have ever been before. Since my election, the United States has not only brought our economy to a level that we have never seen, the most jobs that we have ever had.

You know you have heard me said it many times, African-American, Asian American, Hispanic American, the best unemployment numbers we have ever had, and the most and best employment numbers, 160 million, very close to that number, in jobs. We have never been anywhere close. Wages are up and inequality is down, something that people don't like

writing about, but wages are up. I used to speak during the campaign, and I would talk about wages, where people were making less money three years ago than they were making 21 years ago, 22 years ago. And they'd have two jobs and three jobs.

And when I say three years ago, I'm talking into the area sometime prior to the election. And they were doing very badly. And now, for the first time in many years, wages are up, and employment is up, and unemployment is down. And it's a beautiful thing to watch.

In a week of active and ambitious diplomacy here at the United Nations, America renewed our friendships. We advanced our values greatly and made clear to everyone that the United States will always defend our citizens.

To promote prosperity, I met with Prime Minister Boris Johnson at length of the United Kingdom, continuing our discussions on a magnificent new bilateral trade deal.

So we will see what happens with respect to Brexit, but I suspect we will have a fantastic deal with the U.K. It should be much bigger than it has been over the last number of years, over the last 20 years, frankly. It should be a much bigger deal.

That's true with many countries. We're going to have much bigger trade deals with a lot of countries that have an opportunity to come. And they all want to do business with the United States, especially now.

Earlier today, I stood alongside Prime Minister Abe of Japan, friend of mine, a great gentleman, had a great reelection. And we signed a terrific new trade deal, which tremendously helps our farmers and ranchers and technology. The technology companies are really big beneficiaries.

[16:40:05]

We also held very productive conversations with leaders of Pakistan, India, and many other nations on achieving stronger ties of fair and reciprocal trade.

And with respect to Pakistan and India, we talked about Kashmir. And whatever help I can be, I said -- I offered. Whether it's arbitration or mediation or whatever it has to be, I will do whatever I can, because they're at very serious odds right now. And, hopefully, that will get better.

You look at the two gentlemen heading those two countries, two good friends of mine. I said, fellows, work it out. Just work it out.

Those are two nuclear countries. They have got to work it out.

This week, we also made incredible strides on national security with President Duda of Poland. We signed a joint declaration advancing defense cooperation. And, crucially, Poland has agreed to put up 100 percent of the money, something I don't think you have ever heard said before.

But they're going to put up 100 percent of the money of hosting additional U.S. military personnel that we will be taking from various other countries. We won't have more over. We will have -- we will be moving them around.

Poland is building us phenomenal new facilities. They are spending everything. And they're -- they're going to really do a job. But we will be moving a few thousand soldiers. And Poland will be paying for it.

Together with Prime Minister Lee of Singapore, I signed an important agreement extending our defense cooperation. This hasn't been changed in many years.

And, yesterday, I met with prospective members of the Middle East Strategic Alliance, which is a group that I know very well. I know all of them. And through this effort, the nations of the Middle East are taking more responsibility for securing their own future and their own neighborhood.

And they're also reimbursing us and paying us for a lot of the military work that we incredibly do. But because we're now independent energy wise, we're energy-independent, we have very few boats going over the Middle East.

We used to have them going through the straits all the time. And you probably noticed that, every once in a while, they go after somebody else's. They haven't gone after ours yet. If they do, they have got big problems.

But we have very few boats going over there. They were saying the other day, they have never attacked an American boat.

I'm not asking for trouble, but, if they do, they know they have far bigger trouble. But then they said, but, you know, we don't see very many American boats over here anymore.

This week also brought extraordinary progress to nations of our own hemisphere. In recent days, we have achieved historic asylum cooperation agreements with El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

We were with El Salvador today. A great young gentleman became the president. He's strong and tough. And he's taking care of crime. He was really something today. I was very impressed with him.

And likewise with Honduras, who we met, we signed a cooperation agreement with both and also with Guatemala. We're working with our partners in Central America to ensure that asylum seekers can pursue relief as close to their home countries as possible. That will make a tremendous difference at our southern border.

And Mexico, I have to say, President Lopez Obrador has been outstanding and an outstanding partner. And he's doing a great job in Mexico. The cartels are way down. And the numbers -- our secretary is here now. The numbers are way down, way, way down. And we're doing that without the help of Congress, meaning the

Democrats in Congress, who won't give us a single vote to take care of loopholes. We have loopholes that are so horrible. And it would be so easy to fix. And they know they should be fixed, but they don't want to do it, because they don't want to give Trump any credit, because it's all about the election.

That's all they care about. They don't care about our country. They care about the election.

And the sad part is, with all of the tremendous work that we have done this weekend, whether it's Secretary Mnuchin or Secretary Pompeo, who had some outstanding, outstanding meetings, with all of this tremendous work that we have done, the press doesn't even cover it.

And the Democrats did this hoax during the United Nations week. It was perfect, because, this way, it takes away from these tremendous achievements that we're taking care of doing, that we're involved in, in New York City at the United Nations. So that was all planned. Like everything else, it was all planned and the witch hunt continues. But they're getting hit hard on this witch hunt because when they look at the information, it's a joke.

Impeachment for that, when you have a wonderful meeting or you have a wonderful phone conversation? I think you should ask -- well, actually, you know, that was the second conversation. I think you should ask for the first conversation also. I can't believe they haven't. But I heard there's a there's a rumor out they want the first conversation.

It was beautiful. It was just a perfect conversation. But I think you should do that. I think you should do. And I think you should ask for V.P. pinches conversation because he had a couple of conversations also. I could save you a lot of time. They were all perfect. Nothing was mentioned of any import other than congratulations.

But the word is that they're going to ask for the first phone conversation. You can have it anytime you need it. And also Mike Pence is conversations which were, I think one or two of them. They were perfect. They were all perfect. It's very sad what the Democrats are doing to this country. They're dividing. They're belittling they're demeaning our country.

So many leaders came up to me today and they said, sir, what you go through no president has ever gone through. And it's so bad for your country. People laugh at the stupidity of what they've asked for here. We could do asylum. We could do all of these different things so easily. We could do asylum quickly. We could do loopholes, get rid of them.

Instead, we actually make deals with Mexico, and with Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and we're doing it with them instead of with our Congress. But we're doing it and we get it done. The wall is being built by the way. They've got little coverage. I went to the border. It's going up in New Mexico, it's going up in Arizona. It's going up in California.

Believe it or not, they really wanted that wall in California in San Diego. As soon as it was completed, they said we don't want a wall. They were begging me for a wall. I should take it out and move it to another location. We were with -- the governor, I spoke to him a lot, but the governor of Texas, lieutenant governor of Texas, attorney general of Texas, the senators of Texas, Cornyn, Ted Cruz, and we're building an incredible wall.

It's going to -- number one, it's going to look great. It's going to be virtually impossible to cross unless you're one hell of a mountain climber. It's very tough. It's going to be very tough to get people in drugs over those walls because they're the real deal.

I went to the Secretary of Homeland Security and he got all those people together. I said give me four walls, your optimum every single thing included. And they gave me 20 percent less, 20 percent less, and 20 percent less, meaning less cost.

They came back, they said this is the wall, sir. This would be the best. We have the panels on top which are anti-climb panels. I don't know if you notice the steel on top. We have a different design for a different area, but this anti-climb is very tough. They've -- we had people going out and real climbers, telling us which is the toughest to climb, but these are anti-climb panels. It's very tough to get across. And the wall is going up many miles a week.

And we hope to have over 400 but maybe as much as 500 miles, which will pretty much do it because you have a lot of natural barriers. You haven't mountains, you have really rough rivers, you have some really rough land that you can't cross very easily. So they serve as their natural walls. But we will have -- we think over 400 but we could even have 500 miles.

To combat the malice, corruption of both the Venezuelan and Iranian dictatorships, today I issued proclamation suspending the entry into the United States of senior regime officials and their families. And further to promote American values, on Monday, I was proud to be the first president in history to host a meeting at the United Nations.

I'm so surprised, first president for this. I can't believe that I'm first. I spoke to Franklin Graham about that. I can't believe it -- at the United Nations on protecting religious freedom and liberty for people around the world.

While some partisans and unelected bureaucrats in Washington may choose to fight every day against the interests and beliefs of the American people. My administration is standing up for the American people like no administration has in many, many years.

[16:50:13]

You forgot the American people. You totally forgot the American people. This week, every week, I really can say, my presidency, we're standing up for American prosperity, American Security and the American way of life. And together with our friends and partners, we're building a more peaceful, prosperous and promising future.

We have a tremendous relationship now with a lot of nations that are very happy with what's going on. And that includes in South America, where they've been so helpful, where nobody thought this would be possible. The relationship with Mexico as an example, or El Salvador, or Honduras, or Guatemala. Nobody even knew about it.

We sent them hundreds of millions of dollars and all we got back was caravans of people pouring in. We had tremendous, we had tremendous -- it was terrible. And we've got that stopped and the countries are now helping us. And we stop those payments, by the way. We don't pay those countries that money anymore.

But I will tell you, if they're as good as they seem to be, they're really doing a job on crime and stopping the wrong people from leaving and coming to the United States, we'll be helping them a lot with economic development projects and other things.

So with that, we had a tremendous three days. It was beautiful to see. I made a lot of new friends. I read your list of all the countries I saw pretty much one on one. And it's been very busy but it's been very, very fruitful.

So we could take a couple of questions. I'd love some questions on some of the things that we accomplished at UNGA, instead of the witch hunt, the phony witch hunt questions, which I know that's what you want to ask, because it's probably better for you, but it's not better for the country.

So maybe we'll take a few -- a few questions. Please.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. President. You suggested that you didn't do anything wrong in the course of your conversations with the Ukrainian president. But can you explain to the American people why it is appropriate for an American president to ask a foreign leader for information about a political rival? And what you would have said if you discovered that Barack Obama perhaps had asked a foreign leader for information about you up on the campaign for the presidency?

Well, that's what he did the, isn't it, really. When you think about it, look, that whole witch hunt was started and hopefully, that'll all come out. But there have been some fantastic books written that just came out whether you look at Greg Jared, or McCarthy's book that just came out recently, and so many other books. I mean, a lot of books are coming out. When you start reading those books, you see what they did to us.

What they've done to this country is a disgrace. They've heard this country very badly, and no other president should have to go through what I've gone through. The President -- the new president of Ukraine is looking to stop corruption. There's a lot of corruption going on and there was corruption.

I just told you about senators that threatened him with votes and no money coming into Ukraine if they do things. That's really what people are trying to say that I did. But the only difference is, I didn't do it. You take a look at that call. It was perfect. I didn't do it.

There was no quid pro quo but there was with Biden, and there was with the senators. And they threatened. They said, you do this, you do that, we're not going to give you votes. That's, that's the real deal. So we have an honest group of people that have been maligned. And, you know, it's -- a lot of people say, I'll do -- I'll do even better.

I'm very happy yesterday. I guess we had a 53 poll, and a lot of people say add ten points to anything. Anybody voting for Trump, you can add -- anytime you get a pole, you can add ten points, or seven points or six points, take it any way you want. But I don't know if I consider that to be a compliment.

But in one way, it is a compliment and I guess that's what happened in the last election. Far more people came to vote than anybody thought possible.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So why should the American people then be comfortable with an American president asking a foreign leader for information about American citizen?

TRUMP: Well, I think you could look at your senators, and you can look at Biden and you can look at all these other people. But what we're looking for is corruption. An investigation started called the Russian witch hunt affectionately, and it was a total phony scam.

It was set up by people within the government to try and stop somebody from getting elected. And after that -- after that person, namely me, won and convincingly won at 306 to 223 in the Electoral College -- which by the way, when you run a race, if you're running electoral -- now, if you go by the college Electoral College, that's a much different race than running popular vote.

[16:55:16]

And it's like a 100-yard dash or the mild, you train differently. And I can't help it that my opponent didn't go to Wisconsin and should have gotten much more to Michigan and Pennsylvania and other places, but that's the way it is.

We won an election convincingly, convincingly. And then you had the text message on -- well, if she doesn't win, we've got an insurance policy. How bad was that? You know what, the insurance policy, that's sort of what has been taken place over the last number of years, the insurance policy.

Now, there are a lot of very dishonest people. We're the ones that played it straight. And you know what, the millions of people out there that are looking at what's going on, those people understand it. They see it and they think it's disgusting. And our people are being heard and our country is being heard.

When a Nancy Pelosi allows her position to be taken over by radical far left, socialists, or worse, that's pretty bad. That's pretty bad. Especially when the senators and all of these other people have actually done what they are accusing me of doing, which I didn't do. I'm going to have Mike Pompeo to say a couple of words. I'm going to have Steve Mnuchin say a couple of words, and then we'll do a couple of more questions.

MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE, UNITED STATES: Mr. President, I thought I'd start by talking about Iran. We had a productive week. We saw the Europeans take a position with respect to the attacks that took place in Saudi Arabia making clear this was Iran.

Just as President Trump and I had been saying, and have now joined us and saying that the existing JCPA frameworks is not going to work. It's not going to solve the world's problems. It's not going to create Middle East stability.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: We're going to chat about what we just heard from President Trump. And when he starts speaking again, we will go back to him at the Intercontinental Hotel in Midtown in New York.

First of all, we should just note that he said a lot of things that were not true. And there is a big difference between senators saying as you were talking about, we will withhold aid unless your country starts cracking down and corruption versus we will withhold aid unless your country starts investigating these political opponents of mine.

MIKE ROGERS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CONTRIBUTOR: Completely. And again, having a domestic political issue entangled into any foreign affairs discussion is never good idea, in some cases could rise to the level of well, all the kerfuffle we see here today.

It is, I think, a dangerous thing to accept that this is the normal way that business is done. It's not. Yes, there's lots of if you don't change, you won't get the missile systems, if you buy the S400 from Iran, we'll cut your aid. That happens every day in good diplomacy. This is not this.

TAPPER: But not go after my opponent.

JEN PSAKI, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And it's important to note -- I mean, in this specific accusation he's making against Biden, you know, it was the entire global community, the E.U., the IMF, and the United States, a process that was worked through the interagency process. Biden was really the messenger on this, firing the prosecutor is what I mean. And there was --

TAPPER: In Ukraine, the prosecutor in Ukraine.

PSAKI: In Ukraine, exactly, in Ukraine. That was a process that the global community supported, including reformists in Ukraine. So he alluded to kind of --

TAPPER: Trump is coming back so let me interrupt and let's bring him back.

KRISTINA PARTSINEVELOS, CORRESPONDENT, FOX BUSINESS NETWORK: Thank you. Kristina Partsinevelos of Fox Business. I want to focus on markets because I'll leave it up to everybody else to talk about impeachment. The markets reacted positively after you spoke about China, and that it would happen sooner than rather than unexpectedly.

Yet you have the foreign minister of China saying that they have no intention of, you know, unseating the United States and yet they're investing heavily in infrastructure and military.

TRUMP: Not anymore, maybe.

PARTSINEVELOS: But what --

TRUMP: And maybe they just say that because --

PARTSINEVELOS: What is different this time though, the fact that you're saying it's progressing?

TRUMP: Oh, I just think it's progressing. I think they want to make a deal. They're losing their supply chain, you know.

PARTSINEVELOS: Do you have something specific?

TRUMP: Well, I don't want to say that but I can tell you that these two men and in this case, more specifically, Steve, we're having some very good conversations. And I guess it's next week that a group is coming in and the week after. So we have a lot of -- we have a lot of talks going on, and also by telephone.

They want to make a deal. And you know why they want to make a deal, because they're losing their jobs and because their supply chain is going to hell, and companies are moving out of China, and they're moving to lots of other places, including the United States. And that's not good. That's far worse than they thought.

And, by the way, in the meantime, we're taking in billions and billions of dollars in tariffs. We're taking in tremendous numbers in tariffs. And we're helping our farmers who got targeted. Now, by the way, China is starting to buy our agricultural product again.