In-town pool report #16 - full quotes

Here are some full quotes.

President Trump: "Thank you very much. This is a very special group of people. I've been with them from the beginning. Abbey Gate, you know, Abby gate. One of the dumbest days in the history of our country by a previous administration, getting out of a place that we shouldn't have been. At a minimum, they should have been at Bagram, the big field where we have hundreds of acres around it. Nobody's going to get near it."

"They've been with me, and I've been with them 100% and we meet more than once a year. Actually, I think our all-time meeting was in Bedminster when we played music late into the night. They thought I'd be there maybe for five minutes, maybe not at all, and I showed up for like four hours. We're listening to music all night long, and they were all crying because they lost their loved ones."

"It's a four year anniversary, so we're signing a proclamation honoring them and honoring you and honoring your loved one."

"We're four years now into this nightmare, just a nightmare. I think that that date also helped start the war with Putin and Ukraine, because he saw how incompetent our military was under Biden and under Milley and all these dopes, these dopey people, and that's not our military. You see what our military is now, we knock the hell out of people if we have to, or we settle because they don't want to play games with us, but I just want to say I'm really honored to be with you again ... and your loved ones are looking down and they're very proud."

He spoke a bit about the Oval Office redecorating. "We had an oval office which was still the Oval Office, so I don't want to disrespect it, but now it's very special."

"We did a little thing with Pete [Hegseth] about Secretary of War today, and it seemed to be well received. We'll do it a couple of more times, and if everyone likes it, we'll make that change. Pete, you'll decide."

QUESTION: The defense secretary has ordered a review of the Afghanistan withdrawal that is ongoing. I'm curious if you have any update on that review and for the families, I know there was frustration with previous investigations on Capitol Hill. Are you satisfied with the speed of this investigation thus far?

Sec. Hegseth: "As far as what happened in Afghanistan, the military needs to answer for what's happened in Afghanistan. So upon the President's direction, immediately, we initiated an investigation, which showed that there needed an even deeper dive. So Sean Parnell, our Pentagon spokesman, who himself is an Afghanistan veteran, is leading this effort." ... "I would anticipate middle of 2026, that's how thorough of a review we're doing, hopefully a little bit sooner, but we're going into everything in understanding what happened."

VP Vance: "We're so proud of your loved ones for giving their life for our country. I think importantly today, this is a rectification of a wrong, the fact that the President of the United States lost your loved ones through incompetence, but never acknowledged it, and your government never actually put pen to paper to say we're grateful for your sacrifice. We correct that wrong today, and we're gonna keep on fighting to understand, as Pete said, What happened so it never happens to another family again."

QUESTION: Mr. President, following your meeting with President Lee of South Korea, did you end up talking about trade, and did you reach any conclusion?

Trump: "Yeah, I think we have a deal done. They had some problems with it, but we stuck to our guns. We are going to, they're going to make the deal that they agreed to make."

"it's the biggest deal they've ever made by far, but it's one of the biggest deals ever made. The biggest deal ever made is the one with the European nations. As you know, the Europe deal is the biggest deal ever made. I think it's the biggest deal ever made, period. And, they pay us $950 billion coming into this country and lots of other things. They're going to buy $750 billion worth of our oil and gas and all of the other things."

"we're just doing the right thing, and it's making our country rich and beautiful, and it's very important. I felt so foolish for years watching this take place. You know, we did it in my first term with China. We took in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs, but when covid came back, we focused on that."

Thanks to Kellie for this:

Responses to Kellie Meyer’s Q on care for veterans affected by burn pits:

Trump: “We take good care of our vets. Nobody loves our vets more than me.”

VA Secretary Doug Collins: “We’re streamlining following Congress’ direction, but we’re also adding more services …we’re streamlining our backlog under Trump’s direction…That backlog under Biden was up over 260,000. We’re down now. Mr. President I can tell you that we’re down under 150,000 in just a little over six months...streamlining it so they get that care quicker.”

Q TO POTUS: "On the Department of War - how do you plan to do that, it requires an act of Congress to rename the Defense Department to the Department of war?

A: "We're just gonna do it" POTUS TOLD NEWSNATION.

"I'm sure Congress will go along if we need that I don't think we even need that, but uh, if we need that I'm sure Congress will go along. You know that was the name when we won WW1, we WW2, we won everything. To me, seems like a much more appropriate... The other is defense is too defensive. We want defensive, but we want to be offensive too if we have to be. So it just sounded to me better.”

Around 4:25, your pooler saw about a dozen of the people from the Oval Office proclamation signing pass the windows of the press room. Most of them were carrying white Trump hats.

--

Sophie Hills, staff writer

The Christian Science Monitor

[EMAIL ADDRESS] (mailto:[EMAIL ADDRESS])

XXX-XXX-XXXX