Travel Pool Report #7: POTUS gaggle quotes

President Trump, as he neared press in the restaurant, asked a table, “What do you think, should I talk to them for a little while?” They laughed. “It’s always exciting. You all doing all right?” POTUS asked the press.

He then asked if reporters were going to the speech.

First question was about MN: do you plan to pull agents out of Minnesota?

“We’ll do whatever’s appropriate.” He went on to talk about securing the border, and shifted to gas prices, saying it was $1.99 in “many places.” Zach Nunn told him it was $1.89 in Iowa. That led to clapping. Trump said Nunn is an honorable man and prices are coming way down. He said that crime was coming down, also, including in Minnesota. “You know why? Because we took out thousands of criminals out of Minnesota. But Tom Homan is over there, we all love Tom. And he met with the governor, he met with the mayor, he’s going to meet with the mayor, I guess, and it’s going very well.”

POTUS said Iowa has been with him “all three times” to loud clapping.

Does he have a lot of traveling coming up?

“Yeah, I’m going to do a lot of traveling, I think so. I like traveling. I like traveling to places, I love this place. This was the beginning of my politics, right? They’ve treated me well right from the beginning.”

Why did you decide to shakeup your leadership team in Minnesota and send Tom Homan in?

“I do that all the time. I shake up teams. Everybody here, these are a lot of owners of farmers and places, and you shake up your team, if they can’t do the crops fast enough. Look, we have an incredible team. We did something that nobody said was possible. We didn’t go back to Congress ask for legislation – we closed the border.”

He said again that “nobody” is entering the county, unless they come legally. “You need people to work for you,” he added.

He said he thinks he has been the “most successful first term president, there’s never been a year like this in the history of the country,” he said to very loud clapping (as Eye of the Tiger played and ended overhead.”

POTUS said, “I’m going around, and I’m going around because hopefully we win the midterms, and it’s very scary, because it’s like two out of like 50 years, or something like that, for some reason when a president wins, Republican or Democrat, even if they’re a good president, and hopefully I’m a great president, based on the first year…we had a great first term, too…. But traditionally when a president gets elected, out of I think 50 years, they’ve had two that won, I don’t understand it, they’ve had two, and one was by unusual circumstance.”

All that said, he added, the polls look good, and they have great congressmen and women, “And we love Iowa.”

He talked about the money that the Trump administration just gave farmers. He said he got it from tariffs, and it was because they’d been treated badly by foreign countries,

On the value of the dollar, and if it’s declined too much:

“No, I think it’s great…No, dollar’s doing great.”

Asked about Minnesota again and members of his administration, the president jumped in to criticize and ABC News reporter, moments later allowing the reporter to finish the question, after responding to another question about the dollar.

Do you agree with the assessment from some of your own officials that Alex Pretti is a domestic terrorist or an assassin?

POTUS said, “Well I haven’t heard that. But he shouldn’t have been carrying a gun…Bottom line, everybody in this room, we view that as a very unfortunate incident, okay? Everyone, unless you’re a stupid person. Very, very unfortunate, isn’t it. I don’t like that he had a gun, I don’t like that he had two fully loaded magazines. That’s a lot of bad stuff. And despite that, I say, that’s a, very unfortunate.”

The president did not answer questions about whether he would go to Minnesota.

On him naming himself the de facto president of Venezuela, and whether that makes the US a de facto member of OPEC,

He said the US has a “very strong presence” in Venezuela and taking in a lot of money from the oil. “We are working beautifully with Venezuela.” He said Venezuela will do better than ever before. “We have a very good relationship with the leaders of Venezuela and we’re going to keep it that way.”

POTUS was asked about Cuba and his plans there.

“Well, we’ll see what happens with Cuba.”

He asked around about Cuba, said not too many people interested in Cuba there, he said. “Cuba will be failing….Cuba is really a nation that’s close to failing.”

On polling and his base….the question was interrupted by clapping.

“The base is with us….but think of it, if I were to run again --- if I run again,” he said, teasing the audience, which clapped him on. But he said, he

Off camera, he was asked about Greg Abbott saying he had to recalibrate his response. What did you make of that?

It sounded like POTUS said, “No, I didn’t hear that, did you?”

At 3:38 pm pool is still holding in vans in the parking lot of machine shed.

Francesca Chambers

White House Correspondent

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@fran_chambers

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