In-town pool report #4 - Q&A

The pool entered the Oval Office at 2:53. Arrayed around the desk behind him were HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. Heidi Overton, deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy; and Jayme Franklin, the social media figure active in “MAHA Moms.”

The president spoke, as outlined in the previous pool report, followed by the others. At 3:22, he signed the Executive Order. At 3:23, he took questions. The first question dealt with Iran, asking what comes next and if massive escalation is still on the table. “Well, we have that certainly in that ability. If we want to do that, yeah, you'll find.”

Asked about Iranian demands, he said, “They ask for reparations, you might say, or they ask for money for the damage that we've done. I said that's a good idea. Well, we're going to ask for money for the damage… over a 50-year period.” He cited the damage to the USS Cole and to the Iranian protesters and victims of Iranian violence who were “so badly wounded or killed, many thousands of people, and maybe damages for the 52,000 protest hosts over the last four months, and were killed in Iran. We think their family should get damages for killing their person or their child or mother father that were protesting…. if there's damages to be paid, I think Iran should pay those damages.”

He deflected a question asking if he was frustrated Senate Republicans went home without passing the SAVE Act, saying that he still wants the bill. He was then asked if he would follow the vaccination schedule for his own children. He said he did when his kids were young. “I took my children for five different vaccinations. In other words, I broke it up. The one visit where they just pump, you know, what seemingly looks like gallons, where they pump so much in. I took all of my children from day one. I believed in this a long time, a long time ago.” He added that five doctor visits is “inconvenient. It's five stops, but it's something that I think will have a huge impact on autistic.” He later blamed opposition to his vaccine stands on “the medical groups, the pharmaceutical groups.” He added, “There's nothing that we lose with this. If the worst thing that would happen would be nothing happens, we're not going to lose anything. At the same time, we could gain tremendous. We could save

hundreds of thousands of lives, millions of lives. And I wish we could have done it a long time ago…. I believed in this for a long time, so now we're getting it done. And I think you're going to see tremendous, potentially tremendous results.”

He was asked if the anti-weaponization fund is still alive. He replied, “That'll be up to Todd Blanche, who's our new, and who will be, I think, a great attorney general.” He praised his manufacturing record, crediting his tariffs with bringing back factories. “These plants are going to be start opening up in about six months. And I can only say that the next president will get a lot of credit for what I've done. Please remember, it was me, not them.”

Back on vaccines, he was asked if he meant to say that the MMR vaccine can be quite lethal and if he had evidence to back up that assertion. “No. What I've heard is that there are some people that say it is that way, and I say, well, let's say there's a five percent chance of it. Let's split it up. Let's split it up… given individual, there is no impact. In fact, they've said how safe it seems to be, but I've heard when you put them together, they can be explosive.”

In response to two questions about Dr. Fauci, he said he has not spoken to either the AG or the US Attorney about prosecuting him. And he used the second question to repeat his familiar denunciation of the Biden administration.

Asked if making families go to five different appointments can saddle them with expensive co-pays, he said, “We're going to be working with them. We're going to work with the families, and we're going to make sure everything works at cost-wise very well.”

Asked about the midterms, he attacked Democrats as communists and jihadists. “The thing is we have jihadists being elected all over the place. We have this whether it's communism, jihadism. … A friend of mine called up. He said, you know, really, you should use the word jihadists because that's what's happening.” He added, “When you look at the radicalism and the craziness of the candidates and the stupidity of what they're suggesting, let's get rid of the Supreme Court, let's get rid of the presidency, let's get rid of the Senate. They want to get here. Sometimes I'd like to get rid of the Senate too, but I don't say it, and I wouldn't do it. But you know, they want to get rid of the Senate. They want to get rid of ideally the House, but they're thinking about maybe keeping the House. You know, isn't that nice? These are people that have been not successful. They're people that have been, in many cases, failures.” He said of these Democrats , “I may be wrong, you know. They start off with

a big disadvantage. People don't want to have radical lunatics involved in running our country, and that's what we have. We have people that are saying things that are so great now. They're denying it, or they say, "Well, I've changed my mind. They want to defund our police. They want to terminate our military. No military. We don't want any military in our country. We don't want our police to be paid anymore. They want our police down to like almost nothing. It's like doesn't make sense, right?”

Asked about the Strait of Hormuz, he said, “Well, it's open now…. Look, the only one that has control of the Strait of Hormuz right now is the United States Navy. We have a blockade that's been infallible. It's a steel wall, and we let people in that we want to let in, and those people come in. They've been coming in and they're going out, so it's actually open now. We do not let them go into Iran. They're not admitted into the Strait to go to Iran, but it's open for others now.” He added, “We control the Strait 100 percent,” stating, “Now, can they make trouble? Yeah, they can make trouble. But they're broke. They have no money. You know, Iran is broke, totally broke, and they're not paying their soldiers. They have inflation of 300% as of last night.”

After the pool was being escorted out, two additional questions were asked. To the first, he denied a Wall Street Journal story about talking to the new Fed Chairma. “No, actually, the Wall Street Journal had a wrong story. They said he said I spoke to him. No, I have tremendous respect for Kevin Warsh. I've only spoken to him one time briefly a few days ago…. He's going to run it. I know what he'd like to do, but he has to run it. He's got a board. It's not only him. If it was up to him, It would be different, but he's got a board.” He added, that he has only spoken to him once. “And great conversation, but just he's a great guy. He's my pick, and I'm going with him 100 percent. But they made it sound like I live and breathe. You know, I speak to Kevin all the time, every time. I spoke to him one time.”

Asked about his response to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, he said, “Well, I put it out today on truth. I do. I have a response. I put it out today on truth.” He added, “The relationship is very good.”

The session ended at 3:35.