Pool Reports by Gerren Keith Gaynor, theGrio
| Sent: | Reports: |
| April 25, 2025 08:04 EDT |
In-Town Pool #1 - Gathering for departure Good morning all — Pool is now gathering for POTUS' departure on the South Lawn at the Palm Room Doors. |
| April 25, 2025 09:09 EDT |
In-Town Pool #2 - POTUS exits WH/gaggles POTUS walked out of the residence to the South Lawn at 9:00 and gaggled for about 3 minutes. When asked if he spoke with President Chi, he said he spoke to him "numerous times" and will meet with foreign leaders while in Europe He said talks with the Russia and Ukraine war are "coming along." As well as dealing with Iran. "None of this stuff should've happened," he said on the war. POTUS said he would will pay his respects to the Pope in Rome. Didn't want to comment if he spoke to Chi since Tariffs. He also reiterated that his administration is meeting with Putin. He said he would be discussing tarifff and trade deals with world leaders. "We're Gonna make our country very rich." M1 is on lift off. |
| April 25, 2025 09:29 EDT |
In-Town Pool #3 - Full Gaggle Remarks Here is an Otter link of POTUS' full gaggle on the South Lawn this morning: https://otter.ai/u/JXxH3Zjlw2N08k749LxU8UwI_rU?utm_source=copy_url Full Quotes: Q: Meeting with Xi? A: Numerous times, so we're leading and going to Rome, where we'll be attending the funeral Pope Francis. Some of you are going to go, anybody going and going to be very interesting. We're going to meet with a lot of the foreign leaders they want to meet. Trade deals are going very well. I think Russia and Ukraine, I think they're coming along. We hope, very fragile. And Iran, I think is going very well. We'll see what happens. Working on plenty of things that shouldn't be worked over, good. None of this stuff should have happened. This should have been taken place by Biden. It should have been fixed by Biden, but he couldn't nor did he come close to doing it....we're going to Rome to pay respect, and we'll be leaving that same day. We'll be coming back home tomorrow night, and I'll see some of you over there. Otherwise, I'll see you on television. This morning. You said you spoke with President Xi. Q: Have you spoken to him since the tariffs? I don't want to comment on that, but I've spoken to him many times. Q: Have you met with Japan A: I'm getting along very well with Japan. We're very close to a deal. I'll be meeting with the Italian prime minister. Q: On the pope Q: When did he speak to Xi? "Meeting with Putin right now as we speak. And we have a lot of things going on, and I think in the end, we're going to end up with a lot of good deals, including tariff deals and trade deals. We're going to make our country rich, but we're going to try and get out of war so that we can save 5000 people a week. And that's what my aim is. I want to save 5,000 young men. They happen to be mostly Ukrainian Russian, 5000 young Ukrainian and Russian men. And that's, that's a big honor. If I can do it, I think, I think we're pretty close. No deadline. I just want to do it as fast as possible. What do What I think the tariff land is doing very well. We're resetting the table. We're going to make our country, very rich, very, very rich. It's already happening. Thank you very much. |
| April 25, 2025 14:25 EDT |
In-Town Pool #4 - Trump Gaggles on AF1 Hi All - Your in-town pooler was informed that President Trump gaggled with reporters aboard Air Force One in route to Rome. Here's a YouTube link to the audio: https://www.youtube.com/live/MZTUjr_lUiw A note that the first four minutes of the feed appears to have some audio issues. Some topics and quotes: Trade talks with China: "Free up China, you know, let us go in and work China. Because, frankly, that's what we wanted... we almost got it, and then they backed out of that deal, but we had it to go into China and to sell our product, sell our wares. In other words, it's called to open China. That would be great. That would be a big win, but I'm not even sure I'm going to ask for it because they don't want it open, but because the tariffs I could possibly get that. What do you think opening up China would be a big win? Right? The problem is, no matter how big the win is, the press will not give me credit for it. If I got the greatest win in history, if I got he'll pay us trillions and trillions of dollars. He'll give us anything we want. The press will say, Trump...he just had a terrible defeat. He suffered a terrible defeat. The people now, no, I think we're going to have a lot of big wins. I don't know if it's going to be covered that way by the fake news, but the winds are going to be very substantial. San Francisco judge ruling against administration's withholding of funds from sanctuary cities Texas Senate primary between Cornyn and Paxton: "They're both friends of mine. I like them both, in a way. I wish they weren't running against each other, but I like Paxton. I like Gordon. They're both good people, so I'll make a decision somewhere. But two very good men." Potential additional 90-day pause: "We'll have deals made, but we'll also make deals. We just set the tariff, and will be reasonable, very reasonable, and that'll be the end of the deal. We set the price. They want to come in now. They set the price with that country, but everybody wants to come into hours. Markets adjusting to tariffs: "We said there'd be a transition. People haven't understood it. Now they're starting to understand Think of it this way, we've lost millions of dollars a day for years. Millions not going to happen. We're going to make millions of dollars a day because that's not sustainable Concerns about insider trading: "I can commit to myself. That's all I can commit to. Thousands of people work for me. But I can't imagine anybody doing this. I have very honorable people... So I can't even imagine it."3 Iran Deal: "Having a nuclear weapon is really expensive, but it's also very dangerous, and they can't have a nuclear weapon...the Iran deal is coming along very well. We're dealing at the highest levels in front and I think they want to make a deal. And we want to make a deal." |
Pool Reports below by Megan Messerly, POLITICO
| Sent: | Reports: |
| April 25, 2025 08:41 EDT |
Foreign pool note #1 — Checking in Good morning from Andrews, where it is a cool and partly cloudy morning -- though the sun is just barely peeking through. I will be your pooler for this whirlwind swing through Rome for Pope Francis' funeral. This is the president's first foreign trip since taking office. While we await POTUS, here is a list from the White House of those traveling this morning with POTUS and FLOTUS on AF1: Steven Cheung, Susie Wiles, Mike Waltz, Beau Harrison, Hayley Harrison, Nick Luna, Natalie Harp, Dan Scavino and Stephen Miller. Susie Wiles was spotted boarding AF1 at 8:07 a.m. We're expected to land in Rome at 10:50 p.m. CEST — that's six hours ahead of all of you on the East Coast. POTUS and the First Lady will attend the funeral at St. Peter's Basilica at 10 a.m. CEST tomorrow. |
| April 25, 2025 09:26 EDT |
Foreign pool note #2 — Boarding AF1 POTUS stepped off of M1 at 9:19 a.m. with FLOTUS. He's wearing a bright blue tie. FLOTUS is in a long tan trench coat and wearing sunglasses. Pool called him over for questions and he simply pointed toward the back of the plane, perhaps indicating we'll get an in-flight gaggle. He was up the stairs and inside AF1 at 9:20 a.m. Will send another note when we are wheels up and then will see you on the other side. |
| April 25, 2025 09:32 EDT |
Foreign pool note #3 — Wheels up AF1 is wheels up at 9:31 a.m. ET. Next stop: Rome. It should be an eight hour flight. Ciao and see you all on the other side. |
| April 25, 2025 22:56 CEST |
Foreign pool note #4 — Wheels down / AF1 gaggle AF1 touched down at Leonardo da Vinci International Airport in Rome at 10:54 p.m. CEST. The flight was mostly uneventful, though we did get a brief visit from POTUS at 1:07 p.m. ET, who gaggled with us for just under 15 minutes. POTUS, who had abandoned his bright blue tie for his visit, was joined by Susie Wiles, Steven Cheung and Mike Waltz. Pool learned — after transcribing and typing up this very detailed pool note for you all — that the White House already played back audio from the gaggle. (Pool was alerted to this via the in-cabin TVs airing Fox News, which referenced the mid-flight gaggle.) All the same, I've included highlights below and a complete transcript at the bottom of this email, for future reference. HIGHLIGHTS: Rome:
China/tariffs:
Other topics:
******** FULL TRANSCRIPT: POTUS: Hello everybody. We have a long flight today. But we're going for a good reason. Do you have any questions? Q: What do you hope Steve Witkoff will get out of his meeting with Putin today? POTUS: He'll be calling me. They just left the meeting. I haven't been briefed yet. But, he had — I hear, a pretty good meeting. Q: Any update on Secretary Hegseth, your confidence in him? POTUS: About what? Q: With Signal, having Signal on — POTUS: I don't view Signal as — Q: On his work computer, what do you think? POTUS: I don't view Signal as important. I think it's fake news, really. I don't view it as important. Q: You said you were going to be meeting with some leaders while you were in Rome attending the Pope's funeral, who were you — POTUS: I'm going to be meeting with some people in Rome, yes. Q: Who are you meeting with? POTUS: And a little bit quickly, and frankly it's a little disrespectful to have meetings when you're at the funeral of a pope, they say. So, but I'll be talking to people, I'll be seeing a lot of people. Q: With Zelenskyy, sir? POTUS: Including the — yes — including the prime minister of Italy. Very, very good prime minister. Q: President Biden, any plans to talk with him, he's going to be there? POTUS: Oh he js? I didn't know. I mean, it's not high on my list. It's really not. Q: Sir, can I ask you about this judge in Wisconsin who was arrested because of immigration issues. What's going on with the case there? POTUS: That's a terrible thing, the judge was arrested because he was housing a Tren de Aragua, right? Is that the one you're talking about? Q: Yeah. POTUS: It's pretty surprising. It's terrible. Q: Mr. President, you said that you've spoken to President Xi multiple times. Is that since taking office, sir? POTUS: I don't want to discuss that. But I'm speaking to a lot of people from China, but I'm speaking to people from all over the world, on the tariffs, and we're making very good deals, very good deals, we're going to make our country rich, we're not going to be ripped off like we have been for the last, literally, 50 years. Q: Mr. President, there was a car bomb in Moscow this morning that killed a Russian general. Do you have any reaction to that? POTUS: Who killed what? Q: Russian general killed by a car bomb. POTUS: Well, well, you're just telling me that for the first time. Where did this take place? Q: It took place in Moscow. It was a Russian general. POTUS: That's hitting close to home, right? That's a big one, yeah. I'll look at it. If I hear anything I'll let you — Q: When you see these leaders in Rome, it's more like mix and mingle at the funeral right? Or do you have any individual one on ones? POTUS: It's a little tough because we don't have much time and we're arriving at about 11:30, and we have some people meeting us already and then I'm taking pictures with the military tonight, when we get to the house at 12 o'clock, the embassy, so we don't really have much time. As you know tomorrow morning we're leaving early. I think that we're going to try and see a couple of people that are important to what we're doing. Q: Why did you feel it was important to go to the pope's funeral? POTUS: I just thought it was out of respect. You know, I won the Catholic vote. And I think it's the first time that ever happened for a Republican, won the vote, but, and I won it by a lot. And, I have great relationship to the Catholics. Very simple. But I won the Catholic vote. We got 56 percent of the vote. I don't know why we didn't get more, honestly. But we did well with the Catholic vote, and our relationship is very good so therefore I think it's appropriate. Q: Secretary Bessent said that you wouldn't drop tariffs on China unilaterally, that you would need to see some kind of movement. What do you want to see from China? POTUS: Yeah, no, he's right about that. Well, I'm not going to drop them unless they give us something that's, you know, substantial otherwise I'm not going to drop them. It'll all work out. Those things always work out. You know, we're working on a lot of projects right now. The wall is solved. The border is the most secure it's ever been. We're having a very hard time with judges because they don't want people to be moved out of the country. Shockingly, nobody's every had this before, no other president, there's never been a time when this has ever become an issue where they talk about due process when you have millions of people that you're moving out that are really bad people, very dangerous people, and you have a judge who wants every single one of them to have a trial. So they want us to have millions of trials, therefore. And how long does a trial take, weeks? A trial can take weeks. It's — that's not what it's about. That's not what our country is about. And that's not what I got elected on. And these are judges that just want to, you know, show how big and important they are. They're local, federal judges. And they shouldn't be allowed to do it. You know, we have hundreds of thousands of people that we want to get out of the country and the courts are holding us back. Some judge that nobody ever heard of is holding us back. It's very dangerous for our country. I mean, you want to see a country that'll have crime? Let that happen because it's really dangerous for our country and I can't believe the Supreme Court would let that stand. Q: What kind of movement do you consider substantial from China? POTUS: Well, free up China. You know. Let us go in and work China because frankly that's what we wanted last time. We almost got it and then they backed out of that deal. But we had it, to go into China and to sell our product, sell our wares, in other words, it's called, to open China, that would be great, that would be a big win, but I'm not sure I'm even going to ask for it because they don't want it open. They don't want it open. Big thing on the tariffs. But because of tariffs I can possibly get that. What do you think? Opening up China would be a big win, right? The problem is no matter how big the win is, the press will not give me credit for it. If I got the greatest win in history — if I got — they'll pass trillions and trillions of dollars, they'll give us anything we want, the press will say, "Trump, he just had a terrible defeat, he suffered a terrible defeat." But, the people know. No, I think we're going to have a lot of big wins. I don't know if it's going to be covered that way by the fake news, but, the wins are going to be very substantial. You know, we're losing, we were losing, with Biden, $5 billion a day, think of it. $5 billion a day. I've got that number way down and soon it's going to be very very positive. We're gonna make — we'll be making $5 billion a day. But we have a little ways to go yet. Q: Mr. President can I ask you about the Texas Senate primary? The Texas Senate primary with John Cornyn and Ken Paxton? Are you going to get involved? Have you talked to the candidates? POTUS: Well, they're both friends of mine, I like them both. In a way, I wish they weren't running against each other. But I like Paxton. I like Cornyn. They're both good people. So, I'll make a decision at some point along the road but you have two very good men. Q: I have a question on your immigration agenda. Yesterday, a judge in San Francisco put a nationwide injunction on you guys taking money away from sanctuary cities. Your reaction to that, and then I have a question about the markets. POTUS: Well, it's unbelievable when you hear a judge in San Francisco or a judge in San Diego does nationwide injunctions, having to do with the whole country. Sitting behind the bench, the local bench, even though in some cases, in many cases, they're a federal judge. But a judge can close down — we should close down sanctuary cities, we shouldn't have sanctuary cities. And we'll see how that turns out. Sanctuary cities are sanctuary for criminals. That's what they are. They're sanctuary for criminals, they protect criminals. And we should close them down. If we want a safe country, you have to get rid of sanctuary cities. Q: Mr. President, on India and Pakistan, there are tensions after the attack in Kashmir. Do you have any message for them? Have you been talking to their leaders? POTUS: Well I'm very close to India and I'm very close to Pakistan, as you know. They've had that fight for 1,000 years in Kashmir. Kashmir's been going on for 1,000 years, probably longer than that. And, it was a bad one yesterday, that was a bad one, over 30 people. Q: Are you concerned that there's now tensions on the border between them? How concerned are you about that? Well, there have been tensions on that border for 1,500 years. So, you know. The same as it's been. But they'll get it figured out one way or the other. I'm sure of that. I know both leaders. There's great tension between Pakistan and India but there always has been. Q: So, you've done the one 90-day pause on some of the tariffs. Is it possible you'll do have to do another 90 days, or another extension? POTUS: Probably unlikely. I figure no, pretty much. We'll have deals made, but we'll also make deals. In other words, we'll just set the tariff, and it'll be reasonable, very reasonable. And that'll be the end of the deal, is when we set the price. They want to come in, now they set the price for their country, but everybody wants to come into ours. They don't want to come into — most people don't want us to come into theirs. Q: Do you think the markets are adjusting to your tariff policy? I think so, when you look at what's happening, I think so. I said there'd be a transition. People haven't understood it. Now they're starting to understand it. Look, think of it this way, we've lost billions of dollars a day for years on trade. Billions. Not going to happen. We're going to make billions of dollars. Because that's not sustainable. Q: Mr. President, can you commit that nobody on your financial team was giving any type of tips to Wall Street executives about deals with India? There was some reporting yesterday that people had heads up on Wall Street possibly to make money. Can you commit that that did not happen? POTUS: I can commit to myself. That's all that I can commit. You know, I have thousands of people that work for me but I can't imagine anybody doing that. Q: And if they did? POTUS: I have very honorable people, that I can say, so I can't even imagine it. No, I haven't even heard that, actually. Q: Sir, there have been some concerns about access to food, medicine coming into Gaza. When you spoke to Prime Minister Netanyahu the other day, did that come up at all, about access to humanitarian aid going into the strip? POTUS: No, but Gaza came up. And I said, "We've got to be good to Gaza. Those people are suffering. We've got to be good to Gaza. We've got to take care of them." There's a very big need for medicine, food and medicine. And we're taking care of them. Q: In terms of like opening up more access points or — POTUS: We're pushing people very hard. Q: Pushing the Israelis? POTUS: We are. Q: To open up more access points? POTUS: Very hard. To get food and medicine into Gaza. Q: How did the prime minister respond to that? POTUS: Well. He felt well about it. Q: You've got these Iran technical talks tomorrow — POTUS: The Iran situation is coming out very well. We've had a lot of talks with them. And I think we're going to have a deal — I'd much rather have a deal than the other alternative. That would be good for humanity. Q: Would it start with an interim deal of some sort? POTUS: I think it's going to be pretty much, we're going to do lots of long term — it's a very simple deal. One thing, they just can't have a nuclear weapon. I'm saving them a lot of money just on that. Having a nuclear weapon is really expensive but it's also very dangerous. And they can't have a nuclear weapon. Just that, I'm saving them billions of billions of dollars because that's what it would cost. Now, that being said, the Iran deal is coming along very well. We're dealing at the highest levels of Iran and I think they want to make a deal and we want to make a deal. There's some people that want to make a different kind of a deal, a much nastier deal. And I don't want that to happen to Iran, if we can avoid it. Thank you very much everybody. Q: What's on tap for Melania's birthday? POTUS: Oh she's going to have a great birthday. She's got a working birthday. She's up front. I should send her back. You want to have somebody answer questions? I'll send her back into the lion's pit. Susie, let's send Melania back to the lion's pit. That's funny. By the way, they would love that, wouldn't they? Q: Can we see your office up there sometime? Yeah, you can come up. We'll let them come up, later? Okay. We'll do it. Maybe going back. Q: Are you taking Mrs. Trump to dinner, or have you had time to get her a president? You've been very busy. POTUS: I'll take her for dinner on the Boeing. I'll take her for dinner on Air Force One. I haven't had much time to buy presents, no. We've been pretty busy. But it's working out, things are working out very well. People are starting to understand how good tariffs are, for us. You know, tariffs have been used against us for 50 years. Now — I never understood it as a private person, why we allowed that to happen. You know, it goes back a long time. But I never understood it. Why did we wallow that to happen? Where we couldn't go into China, but they could come here. We couldn't go into Europe, but they can come here. So many. Every place. We couldn't go into India, they could come here. I never understood why they allowed that. And I don't blame the countries, I blame the presidents for allowing it to happen. But you have a different kind of a president now. |
| April 25, 2025 23:13 CEST |
Foreign pool note #5 — POTUS deplanes in Rome POTUS and FLOTUS deplaned AF1 at 11:07 p.m. CEST where a host of dignitaries were there waiting for them. Your pooler is endeavoring to obtain a list of who the greeters are and has been told we will get one. POTUS and FLOTUS held hands as they walked to the Beast. Pool loaded into motorcade at 11:11 p.m. CEST and was rolling as of 11:13 p.m. CEST. |
| April 26, 2025 00:03 CEST |
Travel pool note #6 — POTUS at RON The motorcade arrived at POTUS RON at midnight. Fairly uneventful drive. It's late here in Italy but there were a few huddles of spectators along the route watching the motorcade go by and taking videos as we got into the heart of the city. POTUS told us on AF1 earlier that he is "taking pictures with the military tonight, when we get to the house at 12 o'clock." Ambassador Bruno Pasquino Chief of the Diplomatic Protocol of the Italian Republic Laura Lamar Hochla Chargé d'affaires, United States Embassy to the Holy See Antonio Campillo Hernandez Spouse of Laura Lamar Hochla Shawn Patrick Crowley Chargé d'affaires, United States Embassy to Italy Sabine Crowley-Klaube Spouse of Shawn Patrick Crowley Rodney Max Hunter Chargé d'affaires, United States Mission to the United Nations Agencies in Rome Monsignor Christopher Washington Former Chargé d'affaires of the Apostolic Nunciature of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia |
| April 26, 2025 00:08 CEST |
Travel pool note #7 — Lid We have a lid at 12:06 a.m. CEST. Buonanotte! |
Donald J. Trump (2nd Term), Pool Reports of April 25, 2025 Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/377316