WH in-town pool report #6

Some excerpts from media questions at the end of the cabinet meeting:

POTUS said he’s got one name in mind for the next Fed chair, down from a list of about 10, but won’t share the name.

POTUS said he doesn’t know if he’s friends again with Elon Musk. He suggested there was tension because he wouldn’t mandate everyone buy electric cars. “I think we get along well,” he said.

POTUS was asked whether he supports the second strike to kill survivors of Venezuelan boat strike in September:

“All I know is this, every boat that’s blown up that you see, we save 25,000 lives.”

“I still haven’t gotten a lot of information.”

“To me, it was an attack. It wasn’t one strike, two strikes, three strikes.”

“I want those boats taken out, and if we have to, we’ll attack on land as well.”

“I watched that first strike live,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, but he said he didn’t stick around because he had other work to do.

“A couple of hours later, I learned” about the call for the second strike, he said.

“I did not personally see survivors…because that thing was on fire.”

“It’s called the fog of war.”

No updates on Russia-Ukraine talks because “I’ve spending too much time with you,” POTUS said.

On drug trafficking:

“Anybody that’s doing that and selling it into our country is subject to attack.”

“No, not just Venezuela.”

On Minnesota welfare fraud scandal:

“I think Walz is a grossly incompetent man. There’s something wrong with him.”

“They contribute nothing. I don’t want them in our country,” he said of Somalian immigrant community.

“Our country is at a tipping point,” he said. “We’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking garbage into our country.”

“Let them go back to where they came from and fix it.”

On that note, POTUS stood to exit and press was escorted from the room.