Out of town pool #3 — Wheels Down/AF1 Gaggle

AF1 was wheels down at 8:13 PM.

POTUS came back at 6:57PM for a wide-ranging gaggle with press that ended at 7:23PM.

He talked about a range of topics including Jeffrey Epstein, tariffs, trade, Venezuela, nuclear testing and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Below are some quotes and partial quotes.

On Thailand and Cambodia:

POTUS confirmed he spoke with leaders of both countries and said: “Just today I stopped a war with the use of tariffs … the threat of tariffs.”

“They’re doing great. They were not doing great and then… I spoke to the prime ministers of both countries and they’re doing great. I think they’re gonna be fine.”

On Jeffrey Epstein:

“Jeffrey Epstein and I had a very bad relationship for many years… So he dictated a couple of memos to himself? Give me a break. You’ve got to find out what did he know with respect to Bill Clinton, with respect to the head of Harvard.”

“I was never on his [Epstein’s] island. Bill Clinton went there supposedly 28 times.”

When asked later about a potential pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, he said: “Haven’t thought about it … I don’t rule it in or out.”

He declined to give a timeline on release of more Epstein files.

Said if Democrats ‘had anything’ in the files ‘they would have used it before the election.’

On next steps in Venezuela:

“I sort of made up my mind.”

“I can’t tell you what it is, but we made a lot of progress with Venezuela in terms of stopping drugs from pouring in.”

On if he will make more tariff changes:

“I don’t think it’ll be necessary. We just did a little bit of a rollback on some foods like coffee, as an example.”

On $2,000 tariff rebate checks:

POTUS said the checks will not be distributed before Christmas and said they will be coming next year.

On BBC:

“We’ll sue them for anywhere between $1 billion and $5 billion, probably sometime next week. Well I think I have to do it. They even admitted that they cheated… they changed the words coming out of my mouth. That’s worse than what CBS did with Kamala.“

On Marjorie Taylor Greene:

“I mean, she has very different thinking than I have. Something happened to her over the last period of a month or two where she changed, I think, politically. I think that her constituents aren’t going to be happy. Already I have people calling me, they want to challenge her to a race in her district in Georgia.”

POTUS said the MAGA movement ‘lost a wonderful conservative reputation’ and said he was open to endorsing someone in a primary bid against the congresswoman in Georgia.

On nuclear testing:

Trump insists he wants ‘denuclearization… with the top 3’ US, China and Russia.

Asked whether he’d erupt a warhead, POTUS said: “I don’t want to tell you about that.”

On his MRI:

Said his physician told him he had the ‘best results he’s ever seen as a doctor’ and said it was just ‘part of my standard yearly… physical.’

“I have no idea what they analyzed.”

On campaigning in midterms:

“Oh yeah, I’ll be helping people. I’ll be on the road helping people. Sorry but the midterms are very important.”

He again endorsed eliminating the filibuster.

Please check all quotes against recording.

Katelyn Caralle

Senior US Political Reporter

The Daily Mail

@Katelyn_Caralle