in-town pool report #8b - final POTUS quotes
- From
- John Bennett
- Sent
- Monday, December 15, 2025, 4:49 PM
Below is the final tranche of POTUS quotes from the Oval Office. Once again, please check all against final transcripts and video. The Rob Reiner answer was later on during the Q&A, but leading with it here, due to high interest.
FYI: No changes, as of now, to the remainder of President Trump’s schedule — tworeceptions that remain listed as Closed Press.
ROB REINER: “Well, I wasn't a fan of his at all. He was a deranged person. As far as Trump was concerned, he said he liked he knew it was false. In fact, he knew the exact opposite, that I was a friend of Russia, controlled by Russia. He knows the Russia hoax. He was one of the people behind it. I think he hurt himself, career-wise, he became like a deranged person, Trump Derangement Syndrome. So I was not a fan of Rob Reiner at all in any way, shape or form. I thought he was very bad for our country.”
…
FRUSTRATED WITH ISRAEL’S NETANYAHU?: “No, Israel and I have gotten along very well. My relationship with BiBi Netanyahu has been, obviously, a very good [one]. We, we took out Iran. We, we wiped out with that plane right there. We wiped out the B-2 bomber. We wiped out the Iran nuclear threat, and because of that, we were able to make peace in the Middle East. No, we've had a very good relationship with Israel. We actually have a very good relationship with just about everybody in the Middle East.”
ON POSSIBLE ISRAEL VIOLATION OF CEASEFIRE TERM: “We're going to have to see. We’re looking into that.”
CONFIDENCE IN SYRIAN PRESIDENT AHMED AL SHARA?: “I do. I mean, this
has nothing to do with him. This is a part of Syria that they really don't have much control over. And it was a surprise. He feels very badly about it. He's working on it, strong man, and this has nothing to do with the Syrian government. This had to do with ISIS. … They will be hit hard.”
EXPIRING ACA SUBSIDIES AND CONGRESS: “I'd like to see the people get the money. I'd like to see all of the money that's going to the Democrat insurance companies. You know, the insurance companies are making a fortune. They're up 1700 percent and more, and they're taking in hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars, even trillions of dollars. And Obamacare gives you terrible healthcare. Just so you understand, Obamacare was set up, and I said it right from the beginning for the benefit of the health insurance … companies. The insurance companies, they're making billions and billions of dollars … stock is through the roof. I don't want to give them anything. I want all money going to the people and let the people buy their own health care, it'll be unbelievable. They'll do a great job. They'll get much better health care at a much lower cost.”
ON REPUBLICANS USING RECONCILIATION: “Well, that or knock out the filibuster. You knock out the filibuster, it would all go away. But we have a few people that wouldn't do that. It's crazy. Look, we should knock out the filibuster, and if you did that, we'd get voter ID. You'd have no mail-in voting, all things that make our elections dishonest, and you get a lot of other things having not even to do with voting. But Republicans should knock out the filibuster, and we should approve a lot of things. You wouldn't have January 30 looming. … And if we knocked out the filibuster, it would be just a simple approval. Some Republicans, they were unable to explain why. You know, they, if you ask them why, they're unable to explain they cannot win the debate. But they should knock out the filibuster, and frankly, they should get rid of the blue slips.
…
UKRAINE SECURITY GUARANTEES AND TERRITORY: “They've already lost the territory, to be honest. Territory is lost, but in terms of security guarantee, we'll work on it. We're working with Europe on it. Europe would be a big part of it. And we're working on the security guarantee so the war doesn't start up again. We don't want to have a war set up again.”
TIME LIMIT ON SECURITY GUARANTEES?: “Well, there's no time limit. The time limit is whenever we get it done. We'll try to get it done. We're making progress. It's more difficult than anybody you could have thought.”
GAZA STABILIZATION FORCE STATUS: “It's already running in a very strong form. It's already, but it gets stronger and stronger, and more and more countries are coming into it. They're already in but they'll send, they'll send any number of troops that I ask them to send. They want to see peace. We have more than 59 dancers. We have many countries that aren't even in the Middle East, but they're fairly close to the Middle East. They want to be involved.”
(Your pooler’s audio definitely had ‘dancers’ on the last quote. Check against final transcript and video, please.)
**
John T. Bennett
White House Correspondent & Editor-at-Large
Roll Call & CQ | FiscalNote publications