In-town pool report #4

The pool began filing out of the Oval Office at 4:23pm.

During the announcement, President Trump and most of the attendees spoke for around 47 minutes before he took questions from reporters.

Other figures present at the event included National Economic Council Adviser Kevin Hassett, Sen. Kevin Cramer, Sen. Eric Schmitt, Reps. Vern Buchanan, Mike Kelly, and GM Plant Manager Joe Urbanic.

Trump continued to criticize Democrats' message on affordability, calling it a "Democratic hoax." He specifically criticized former Tennessee Democratic special election chair Aftyn Behn on the issue: "the word affordability when they mention it…she said it’s all about affordability. They never talk about specifics.”

Trump was asked about the Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, saying he thought they had a "very good meeting."

“I don’t know what the Kremlin is doing. I can tell you they had a reasonably good meeting with President Putin. We’re going to find out."

The president also said he was under the impression that Putin wanted to end the war.

On Venezuela: "It's not a pressure campaign. It's much beyond that." Said that he spoke to Maduro and told him "a couple of things."

When asked specifically whether he supported the decision to kill survivors in the Sept. 2 boat strike operation: "I support the decision to knock out the boats and whoever is piloting the boats, most of them are gone, but whoever piloted those boats, they're guilty of trying to kill people in our country."

On his decision to pardon Henry Cuellar: "He was a respected person. He was treated very badly because he said that people should not be allowed to pour into our country and he was right. He didn't like open boarders....as soon as he made that statement, I then said 'I bet he gets indicted' and that's what happened...he got indicted for speaking the truth and his wife got indicted and that's sort of a first, usually they leave the wives alone."

The president criticized Rep. Ilhan Omar and Somalis living in Minnesota: “She’s a disaster. She should not be – and her friends shouldn’t be allowed, frankly they shouldn’t even be allowed to be congresspeople....“Because they don’t represent the interests of our country.”