Subject: In-town Pool Report No. 3 — Departure/gaggle
POTUS exited the Oval alone at 12:34pm. He is still taking questions from pool.
Highlights so far below. Fuller transcript TK.
On Biden: “I heard Biden was a loser. I mean look, Joe never got more than 1%. It looks like he’s failing, it looks like his friends from the left are going to overtake him very soon.”
“When a man has to mention my name 76 times in his speech, that means he’s in trouble. He’s a different guy. He acts different than he used to. He looks different than he used to.”
“I’d rather run against, I think, Biden than anybody. I think he’s the weakest mentally and I think Joe is weak mentally. The others have much more energy.”
“I call him 1% Joe because until Obama came along he didn’t do very well.”
On North Korea: “I think North Korea under [Kim’s] leadership has tremendous potential.”
Potus said he received a “beautiful” “very warm” letter from Kim Jong Un.
“We have a very good relationship together... I think they something will happen, but in the meantime we have our hostages back. The remains lee coming back. We have a very good relationship.”
He said a meeting could happen again soon, but “In the meantime he’s kept his word... that’s very important to me.”
On Mexico: Potus took a piece of paper out of his breast pocket and said it’s his deal with Mexico. He declined to show it to us, but said it will go into effect when Mexico tells him it’s okay to release it.
“That’s the agreement that everybody says I don’t have. I’m going to let mexico do the announcement at the right time.”
“This is one page of a very long and very good agreement from Mexico and the United States. Wthout the tariffs, we would have had nothing.”
“For a long time, for many years, people tried to get what we got in a period of many days. They’re moving right now 6,000 soldiers to their southern border. You think they had that two weeks ago? Two weeks ago, I’ll tell you what we had: we had nothing.”
Subject: WH out of town pool #1
Trump arrived at JBA at 1:08 pm.
He waved to reporters as he walked toward the plane’s staircase.
Accompanying the president on the plane are Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa and Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska, Andrew Wheeler and Bill Wareham of the EPA. Ernst, Fischer, Wheeler and Wareham briefly spotted by the press cabin to say hello before POTUS arrived.
Staffers spotted boarding the plane include Emma Doyle, Scavino, Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
FYI: George Stephanopoulos is also flying on AF1 to Iowa (sitting in one of the front cabins). He declined to say why he was making the trip. A WH official said he is scheduled to interview POTUS and that the interview should air on Sunday.
Wheels up for Iowa shortly at 1:12pm.
That should give the press something to think about. But they won’t.