In-town pool #15: Fuller quotes about Signal and tariffs

Focusing on the Signal chat and tariffs; next report will have other topics.

Signal:

"It's a witch hunt. I wasn't involved with it; I don't — I wasn't there, but I can tell you the result is unbelievable because the Houthis are looking to do something. ... The Houthis are dying for peace."

Do you still believe nothing classified was shared? "That's what I've heard. I don't know. I'm not sure, you have to ask the various people involved."

Senate GOP wants an inspector general report, your response? "That doesn't bother me. I want to find if there's any mistake or if Signal doesn't work -- it could be that signal is not (a) very good company, and maybe it's not very good I think we'd rather know about it now. There was no harm done, because the attack was unbelievably successful that night, and it has been unbelievably successful every single."

"Mike (Waltz), I guess he said he claimed responsibility."

"It was Mike, I guess. I don't know. I was told it was Mike."

"Mike — he took responsibility for it."

"Hegseth is doing a great job, he had nothing to do with it."

"I don't know that Signal works, I think that Signal could be defective, to be honest with you."

Tariffs:

Wants Congress to pass a law so car interest can be deducted on your taxes if the car is made in America

"I think people will be impressed. We're going to be -- we're going to be very fair, going to be very nice, actually. We have not been treated nicely by other countries, but we're going to be nice. So I think people will be pleasantly surprised, but it's going to make our country very rich, because we're the piggy bank that everybody steals from and they've been doing it for many years, for decades, and we're not going to let it happen."

"We're going to have very strong policing" to enforce tariffs on cars being made in the U.S.

"That number is going to be used to reduce debt greatly in the United States and to build things, reduce taxes. Basically, I view it as reducing taxes and also reducing debt. And within a fairly short period of time, I think we're going to have a balance sheet that's going to be outstanding."

April 2 tariffs will apply to all countries

"We're going to make it all countries, and we're going to make it very lenient. I think people are going to be very surprised. It'll be, in many cases, less than the tariff that they've been charging us for decades. So I think people are going to be very, very surprised."

Automaker reaction to the tariffs: "It depends on whether or not they have factories here. I can tell you, if they have factories here, they're thrilled. If you don't have factories here, they're gonna have to get going and build them, because otherwise they have to pay taxes."

Tariffs good for Tesla? "I think they may. It could be a net neutral or it may be good. He has a big plant in Texas, he has a big plant in California, and anybody that has plants in the United States, it's going to be good for."

On VP's comments that he doesn't like bailing out Europe: "Well, I understand where he's coming from. The European Union has been treating us very, very badly in terms of the VAT tax that they charge. They charge a tremendous VAT tax, and they don't sell our cars in Europe. They don't sell our agriculture in Europe; they don't let us do very much. They treat us very badly."

"If I did to them what they did to us, I think a lot of people would be very unhappy."

"I'm going to be much more lenient with regard to the tariffs that you'll see on April 2. I'm going to be much more lenient than they were with us."

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Shira Stein

Washington correspondent

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