Pool Reports of June 5, 2025

In-Town Pool Report 1 — Chancellor arrival/POTUS on Xi call

Good Morning from a very crowded stakeout area….

POTUS greeted German Chancellor Merz at 11:38am infront of West Wing doorway

Asked for his message to the German people:
POTUS said he loved the German people

Asked about call with Xi:
"It went very well, thank you, we'll see you inside"

In-Town Pool Report 2- Oval Pool Spray on-going

From inside the Oval Office starting at 11:48a

Merz presented POTUS with what he said is the birth certificate of POTUS's grandfather, "Born in 1869"

POTUS said he would hang it up in a "place of honor."

***
POTUS to Merz: "Chancellor I want to congratulate you."

Spoke of his own 2024 election victory

Questions:
On Travel Ban
"Why now? ..It can't come soon enough."
"We dont want tonhave other bad people come into our country..."

On Xi call
"We had a very good conversation...it's very complex stuff and we straightened it out"

"I think we're in very good shape with China"

On whether call discussed Chinese students coming to the U.S.
"Chinese students are coming."

Said he believes Havard is "starting to behave."

In-Town Pool Report 3-More from Oval

Is Germany doing enough on defense spending?
Said it's "good" they're spending more

On Biden/Autopen
"i think the biggest scandal of the past many years is the Autopen."

I can tell autopen easily

I think its very disrespectful to people

I dont think he had any idea…essentially who ever used the autopen was the president

On Elon Musk criticisms of BBB:
I've always liked Elon

Said he was surprised

"I'd rather have him criticize me than the bill"

Said Musk was upset that EV tax credits stripped

Said Musk recommended a Democrat to run NASA, but "we said no."

Touched on Musk's "black eye" during recent Oval Office appearance. Said Musk was offered make-up but turned it down

"You want a little make-up?"

In-Town Pool Report 4 - more Oval Spray on Musk, Putin, Ukraine

Pool was escorted out of Oval Office at 12:27pm

*** More on Elon Musk
After talking about economy and ramped up immigration enforcement:
"We've done a good job. Elon knew that…"

Reiterated his surprise of Musk criticizing bill:
"Elon knew the inner workings of this bill…

"He never had a problem until right after he left…"

"I'm very disappointed in Elon"

"I think he misses the place…"

"People leave my administration and they love us and then at some point they miss it so badly.." said some leave and become "hostile."

** on PUTIN

He got hit. He's been hitting

I think mistakes were made by him.

"There's some bad blood between the two...i have to deal with it"

"There's some additional fighting that's going to go on."

"I'll never get credit," he says of stopping war between Pakistan and India

Asked whether he supports Ukraine, notes recent mineral deal and said "I'm for stopping killing."

POTUS said US receives images of battlefields: "Bodies, arms, heads, legs all over the place"

** on military recruitment
Touted increased enrollment in U.s. military

We have waiting lists of people waiting to get in

Asked about Graham bill on tariffs:
"they're waiting for me to decide what to do."

More on Autopen:

Said people using auto-pen did not have same ideology as Biden
"Those are not the same people who had the same ideology as Joe Biden."

Lunch Lid until 2:15pm

Lunch lid called until 2:15pm

In-town pool report 5- Pool in place

Pool was let into the State Dining Room at 4:07p

Event participants are seated at long desks, including AG Pam Bondi. We are awaiting POTUS' arrival. This event should be live streamed

In-Town Pool Report 6 — Event Starts

POTUS entered the State Dining room at 4:12pm joined by the president of the Fraternal Order of Police.

"It's an honor to be joined by the National Fraternal Order of Police executive board..."

In-Town Pool Report 7- no Response to shouted Q's

POTUS delivered prepared remarks where he called for passage of BBB:
"We want to get it passed through Congress without delay."

POTUS did not respond to shouted questions about Elon Musk's claims on the Epstein report.

Pool was then escorted out at 4:29p

In-Town Pool Report 8 -- Travel/Photo Lid

A lid was called at 6p.m.

Foreign Pool Report #1. Background on German Chancellor Friedrich Merz´s visit to the White House

Guten Morgen,

I am your foreign pooler for the visit of Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz to the White House. Please feel free to reach out with any questions.

This is Chancellor Merz's first visit to the United States since taking office on May 6 and comes amid ongoing tensions between the U.S. and the European Union over trade and the war in Ukraine.

Schedule:

Chancellor Merz arrived in Washington on Wednesday night and is staying at Blair House. He is scheduled to arrive at the White House at 11:30 a.m. for an official working visit, which includes a lunch and a bilateral meeting.

• 11:45 a.m. Bilateral meeting in the Oval Office
• 12:15 p.m. Lunch in the Cabinet Room

The Chancellor is expected to return to Berlin tonight.

Topics for the bilateral meeting:

The discussion is expected to focus on bilateral relations and three key issues:

• Efforts to end the war in Ukraine
• The ongoing U.S.–EU trade dispute
• Europe's contributions to its own security

The leaders are also likely to address the conflict in the Middle East.

Previous meetings and relationship:

This is Chancellor Merz's inaugural visit to Washington and his first in-person meeting with President Trump since taking office. According to the German Press Agency (dpa), the two leaders briefly met years ago in New York.

They have spoken by phone multiple times in recent weeks. According to German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW), they are on a first-name basis—"Friedrich" and "Donald"—and have exchanged private cell numbers.

While Merz is pro-American, he has voiced criticism in recent months. He disapproved of events in the Oval Office during President Trump's March meeting with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and described Vice President JD Vance's comments at the Munich Security Conference as "overreach." Vance had accused European allies of undermining democracy.

Merz also pushed back on U.S. criticism regarding the classification of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) by the German domestic intelligence service as right-wing extremist. AfD placed second in the February election with 20.8% of the vote. In his first TV interview as Chancellor, Merz urged the Trump administration to "leave German domestic politics alone."

Still, Merz seeks to focus on common interests. In a move echoing former Chancellor Merkel, he has invited President Trump to visit Kallstadt, the German village where Trump's grandfather, Friedrich Trump, grew up before emigrating to the U.S.

In a recent interview with German broadcaster WDR, Merz shared how his first telephone conversation with Donald Trump went: "It's always important not to talk for too long, but to keep it short and also let him talk. You have to adapt your approach and work with him. At the same time, we mustn't make ourselves smaller than we are. We are not supplicants."

During a recent appearance on Germany's public broadcaster ZDF, Merz remarked: "I don't need valerian to stay calm and have a reasonable conversation with the American President."

According to dpa, Merz has been preparing intensively for this meeting and sought advice from several leaders who have previously met Trump.

Background on trade:

Germany is the biggest economy in the European Union and is eager to ease trade tensions with the U.S. While the topic ranks high on the agenda, Merz has no authority to negotiate directly—trade policy is an EU competence.

On Wednesday, EU trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič met with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Paris. Šefčovič described the meeting as constructive but expressed concern over the recent doubling of U.S. metals tariffs.

Since President Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on April 2, he has met with several European leaders at the White House:

• Italian PM Giorgia Meloni (April 17)
• Norwegian PM Jonas Gahr Støre (April 24)

The 50% tariffs on European goods originally threatened by Trump to take effect on June 1 have now been delayed until July 9.

Background on Ukraine

The top priority of the visit is likely to be efforts to end the war in Ukraine. On Wednesday, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Merz would deliver a clear message to Trump: "Europe is firmly on the side of Ukraine," and we need "to bring Russia to the negotiating table. This opportunity for peace must not be missed".

Chancellor Merz is expected to urge Trump to increase pressure on President Putin to agree to a ceasefire. On Monday, German spokesperson Stefan Kornelius told reporters that Merz would "do everything in his power to lobby the U.S. President for a fair ceasefire, including with the threat of sanctions."

During his campaign, Merz supported continued military aid to Ukraine and called for Germany to supply Taurus cruise missiles, going beyond the red line drawn by his predecessor, Chancellor Scholz, who warned against any further escalation of the war between Russia and Ukraine. Since becoming Chancellor, he has plunged into diplomatic efforts to try to secure a ceasefire and keep Western support for Ukraine intact.

Within days of taking office, Merz traveled to Kyiv with leaders of France, the UK, and Poland. Last week, he hosted Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in Berlin, where they agreed to cooperate on weapons production, including long-range missiles.

Background on Defense:

The German government vows strong support for Ukraine and higher military spending. President Trump has repeatedly complained about the low defense spending of some European NATO partners, including Germany, and threatened to withdraw U.S. protection. Now Merz can say that Germany is planning a significant military buildup: 5% percent of Germany's GDP will be allocated to defense in the future, with 3.5% going directly to the military and 1.5% to related infrastructure.

Friedrich Merz, a staunch transatlanticist, is likely to try to convince President Trump that it is also in his own interest for the U.S. to remain committed to Europe. At the same time, he wants to put Europe on a path to more self-reliance.

Background on the Middle East:

Merz is a strong supporter of Israel, in line with Germany's historical responsibility following the Holocaust. Germany is Israel's largest European trading partner and continues arms sales and legal support at the ICC.

However, last week Merz criticized Israel's widening military operations in Gaza: "What the Israeli army is doing in the Gaza Strip—I no longer understand the goal. To harm the civilian population in such a way... can no longer be justified as a fight against terrorism."

This marked a rhetorical shift from decades of nearly unconditional German support for Israel. Merz joined major European partners in turning increasingly critical of Israel.

Public sentiment in Germany is also shifting. A recent Bertelsmann Foundation poll found only 36% of Germans now hold a positive view of Israel—a drop of 10 points since 2021.

Background on the Chancellor:

Friedrich Merz, 69, a conservative, became postwar Germany's 10th Chancellor on May 6. He is a commercial lawyer from a rural region in western Germany and a long-time advocate of conservative values and family. He met his wife Charlotte (now a judge) while studying law. They have three grown children. A licensed pilot, he is openly passionate about his hobby and sometimes would fly his own small plane from his home in the Sauerland region to Berlin.

A member of the center-right CDU (Christian Democratic Union), Merz served in the European Parliament (1989–1994) and the German Parliament, the Bundestag (1994–2009), where he rose to lead the CDU parliamentary group before losing out to Angela Merkel for party leadership. He was more traditionally conservative than she. According to Deutsche Welle, over these years he took a particular interest in Germany's relationship with the United States.

In 2009, Merz chose not to stand for parliament again and went on to pursue a career in business instead. From 2016 to 2020, he was chairman of the supervisory board of the German arm of the American investment company BlackRock, and during this time he often traveled for business to the United States and China. Volker Resing, who wrote the recent biography "Friedrich Merz: His Path to Power", says that Merz would possibly be "the most international chancellor" Germany has had since 1945.

He re-entered politics in 2021 and won the 2025 election on promises to boost the economy, support Ukraine, and curb irregular migration. In May, he issued an order to reject undocumented migrants, including asylum seekers, at Germany's borders. That marks a big shift since Germany's "Refugees Welcome" culture during Europe's migrant crisis in 2015 under Angela Merkel.

On May 6, he became Chancellor after a bumpy start. He needed an unprecedented second vote in the Bundestag to secure the necessary majority. Now Merz's conservative CDU governs Germany in coalition with its sister party, the regional Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD).

Foreign Pool Report #2 German Chancellor briefing

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz held a press briefing this morning for the German media at the Blair House.

I am sharing some quotes, thanks to the help of our colleague Ines Pohl, with Deutsche Welle, who was there.

"I am looking forward to the visit. We are well-prepared. NATO will be a major topic, as will trade and Ukraine. When we talk about German domestic politics (AFD), I will use clear words".

"The Chancellery will intensify bilateral talks".

Foreign Pool report #3 German Chancellor's quotes in the Oval

Chancellor Merz's gift to President Trump was the birth certificate of POTUS's grandfather, Friedrich Trump, "born in 1869". Friedrich Trump grew up in Kallstadt, Germany, before emigrating to the U.S. Both leaders shook hands, exchanged smiles, and offered compliments. Merz offered his "close cooperation with the United States". He said "we owe the Americans a lot. We will never forget about that".

On Ukraine, Merz said "we are all looking for instruments to bring this war to an end. America is in a very strong position to do something. Let's talk about what we can do jointly. We are ready to do what we can. As you know, we (the EU) are looking for more pressure for Russia". He said Trump is "the key person in the world" who can stop this war, "by putting pressure on Russia". He also said that Ukraine and Russia are not the same: "Ukraine is only targeting military targets, and not civilians".

Foreign Pool Report #4 Departure

Chancellor Merz left the West Wing at 2.03PM. Now he is heading to the National Mall, close to the Lincoln Memorial, for a stakeout with German media.