report 9 -- quotes from second half of available (far side of press rope line)

ASKED WHY SHOULD ANYONE TRUST HIS GOVERNMENT’S NUMBERS, GIVEN HIS FIRING?

“Why should anybody trust numbers? You go back to election, election day. Look what happened two or three days before, with the massive, wonderful job numbers, trying to get him elected or her elected, trying to get whoever the hell was running. Because you go back and they came out with numbers that were very favorable to Kamala. Okay, you're trying to get them elected. You're trying to get her elected. And then on the 15th of November or thereabouts, they had an eight or 900,000 over statement right after the election. It didn't work, because, you know who won? Jon, I won.”

[Jon is Jon Karl, from ABC. No, I don’t know why.]

“We're doing so well. I believe the numbers were phony, just like they were before the election. And there were other times. So you know what I did? I fired her, and you know what I did? The right thing.”

ASKED IF ALL GOV OFFICIALS SHOULD FEAR FOR THEIR JOBS IF THEY HAVE NEGATIVE NEWS:

“I've always had a problem with these numbers. You know, I was thinking about it this morning, before the numbers that came out, I said, ‘Who is the person that does these numbers?’ And then they gave me stats about before the election, I had a similar problem. I mean, she gave out numbers that were so good for the Democrats, it was like unbelievable. And then right after the election, She corrected those numbers with, I think, almost 900,000 corrections. I think nobody had ever seen anything like it. Well, today, she did the same thing with the 253,000 whatever the number was, no, no. We need people that we can trust.”

ASKED AGAIN ABOUT BOARD OF GOVERNORS OPENING:

“I've got about three very good I have a lot of good candidates. I will say everybody wants it. I've had more phone calls, but I have three people. I can do a long term thing, or I could do a temporary it's a 14 year term.”

WHY IS SWITZERLAND GETTING A HIGH TARIFF RATE?

“Well, the problem with Switzerland, we have a we have a 40, we have a $40 billion deficit with Switzerland. And I spoke yesterday to Switzerland, but we have a $40 billion deficit with Switzerland. That's a big deficit.”

ARE YOU BLOCKING FOREIGNERS FROM DONATING TO HIS BALLROOM FUND?

“Honestly, I never even thought of it, but it doesn't matter. I'm putting up my money, but it doesn't even matter they've wanted a ballroom at the White House, and it's been very popular. You know, when we put it out yesterday, I'm not looking for that. You know, you have very strong restrictions. And we go by the restrictions.”

Also says he will release the names of the donors.

ASKED ABOUT STEVE WITKOFF’S VISIT TO MIDEAST:

“He had a great meeting with a lot of people, and the primary meeting was on food. And he also had some other conversations that I'll tell you about later, but he had a meeting on getting the people fed, and that's what we want.”

ASKED ABOUT INDIA’S TARIFF:

“Well, I understand India no longer is going to be buying oil from Russia. That's what I heard. I don't know if that's right or not, but that's a good step.”

ASKED ABOUT SOME REPUBLICANS WANTING A TARIFF REBATE CHECK:

“A lot of people that would like to see us do sort of a dividend to the people of our country. It's something I’d consider. I also want to – I want to pay off debt, but there's a possibility I do a dividend.”

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S.V. Dáte

Senior White House Correspondent

HuffPost

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