Pool Reports of May 4, 2025

Travel note 1: Between sea and lake

Good morning from the Mar-a-Lago-adjacent staging/parking area in Palm Beach, where it is not so sunny but it is a tiny bit rainy.

Pool has been assembled and our gear has been sniffed for explosives by a very gorgeous girl named Kora.

Pool was also scanned with a magnetometer, but this was outside Kora's area of responsibility as she lacks the opposable thumbs needed to hold that particular instrument.

Having been deemed free of prohibited items by the relevant authorities, we have loaded back into vans and as of 0817 ET we are eagerly awaiting the chance to join up with any presidential motorcade that might be passing through the area.

Travel note 2: Rolling

Motorcade is rolling as of 1025 ET.

Travel note 3: Trump International / Motorcade incursion

The Beast and motorcade arrived at Trump International Golf Club at 1033 ET. Pool vans have split off and are proceeding to holding site.

During the ride to the golf club, a local motorist in a black pickup truck (a Dodge Ram) appeared to inadvertently find his way into the lane next to your pooler's press van shortly after motorcade departed MAL.

The oblivious driver did not initially stop for flashing lights on a Palm Beach sheriff's SUV full of deputies in tactical gear. The SUV then pulled alongside the recalcitrant pickup, allowing the driver to see the rifles carried by the SWAT team, at which point he slowed down and the motorcade continued on.

Travel note 4: Reloaded for return

As of 1345 ET your gallant and fearless press pool has once more assembled in our trio of transit vans, all of which are presently staged for eventual reunification with the portion of the motorcade that left us behind upon arrival at Trump International.

There has been no official word on changes to the departure schedule but should such word be given your pooler shall endeavor to communicate that information post haste.

Travel note 5: Rolling!

It is now raining here in West Palm Beach, where your pool has been standing by in vans (and also standing by outside the vans).

But we are back in and rolling as of 1510.

As the Beast exited the club, our photographically-minded van mate reported POTUS wearing his customary white golf shirt with a coordinated white cap. He did not wave as there were no supporters to wave to in this rain.

Travel note 6: MAL

The Beast and associated motorcade vehicles pulled into Mar-a-Lago at 1516.

Your van-bound pool has split off to the usual staging area and will be holding until POTUS departs MAL for Palm Beach International.

FPPO: Pool has been advised that we will be flying back to JBA on the same smaller plane (C-32) we used on Thursday.

This likely means any hypothetical gaggle with anyone en route will probably not be streamed and pool will not be able to give a proper wheels up notice.

Should there be an on-record visit to the press section your pooler will endeavor to record and transcribe for sending out upon arrival at JBA.

Travel note 7: Airport bound

Motorcade is rolling for Palm Beach International as of 1717.

Travel note 8: PBI

Motorcade arrived at Palm Beach International at 1725. POTUS was already up the stairs and boarding as pool was exiting the vans.

The drive from MAL was without incident but pool saw two large contingents of people — first protesters, then supporters of the president — holding signs along the right side of the motorcade route just before the airport.

PLEASE NOTE: POTUS and company are traveling on the C-32 (converted Boeing 757).

For reasons unknown to your print pooler (most likely because he lacks the requisite security clearance and need to know) he will lose signal once the aircraft doors are closed.

You should therefore consider this your de facto notice that Air Force One is or will imminently be wheels up for Joint Base Andrews.

Travel note 10: Wheels down JBA + GAGGLE!!

Air Force One was wheels down at 1934 ET.

Approximately 15 minutes into the flight from PBI to JBA, Karoline Leavitt came back to the press section of the plane to inform us that POTUS wished to gaggle with us and gave us a five minute warning.

Your traveling press pool, plus a White House stenographer and the White House Communications Agency TV crew, immediately attempted to squeeze into the available space without displacing members of the president's Secret Service detail and while maintaining a semblance of personal space for all and giving both still and television cameras appropriate sight lines. In this we were more or less successful, in no large part thanks to our Air Force-trained flight crew's skilled hands keeping turbulence to a minimum.

After we were in position, POTUS emerged from behind the sliding wooden door separating the main staff cabin from the middle section of the plane, traversed that middle section, and found himself face to face with your pool. He remained for approximately 12 minutes, during which he took questions on trade talks with China and other countries, why he removed Mike Waltz from the National Security Adviser role, problems with the PEPFAR program, his future judicial nominations, whether he offered to send troops into Mexico and other topics.

Your pooler and co-pooler (the WSJ's Alex Leary) have compiled this very, very rough transcript which I am including below to serve your reporting needs.

Although we both endeavored to be accurate in our auditory review of the recording and fleet of finger in transcribing the questions and the president's remarks, in the interests of accuracy I would beseech you to check quotes against the TV pool feed or the official White House transcript if/when it becomes available.

--BEGIN TRANSCRIPT--

POTUS: We have a lot of good news to report and you'll be hearing about it...we've got some good things coming out of the many war zones that were created by Biden and a group of incompetent people ... we'll talk about that later or tomorrow.

Q: Any plans to speak with Xi this week?
A: No ... but China and our people are talking about different things.

Q: Why did you decide to move Waltz out of NSA job?
A: I think moving him was an upgrade [for him]

Q: Was appointing Waltz as NSA a mistake?
A: No, it's irrelevant, it's not a big deal, he was fine and where he is he'll do a good job.

Q: What made you lose confidence in him?

A: I didn't lose confidence in him...he's going to the United Nations ... personally, if I had a choice I'd rather have that job [UN ambassador] than the other [NSA].

Q: Any trade deals coming this week?
A: It could very well be.

Q: Could you tell us more about them?
A: Nobody understands, we're negotiating with many countries but at the end of this I'll set my own deals because I set the deal, they don't set the deal, I set the deal. They've been ripping us for years, I set the deal. Every country, almost without fail, friend and foe, has been ripping us off for years, so we're meeting with almost all of them — including China — and at the end I'm setting the deal. You keep saying ... this is not like a big deal that's gonna be signed — in some cases we'll sign them but we don't have to sign them. I'll be setting the deal, I'll be setting the tariff.

You keep asking the same question: 'When will you agree?' It's up to me, it's not up to them, it's up to me. Now they don't have to deal with us, which is ok because under Biden we were losing $5 billion dollars a day, think of it, $5 billion dollars a day. Now we're not dealing with China at all because the tariff is so high that they basically can't deal, and because of that we're saving billions of dollars.

And I'm not saying this to be a wise guy with you, to be mean, I don't want to be mean to you, you're a good professional, but you do keep asking me that same question.

It's not like we're going to sit down in an ivory room, and we're just ... there'll be some of that, very little ... at some point in the next two weeks or three weeks, I'm gonna be setting the deal. I'm gonna that such and such a country has had a tremendous trade surplus with us...they've taken advantage of us in various ways and we fully understand what they were doing, we were being led by people who were not very smart, they were able to be taken advantage of, but I can't be taken advantage of, so at a certain point I'll be just setting a certain tariff number.

Q: On PEPFAR, there's waiver in place but people are saying they're still not getting medicines.

A: Well, that shouldn't be happening, but the other thing, other countries should be helping, and I'm a big fan of getting that solved, but you know we're the only country — where is France, where is Germany? Where are these other countries? Nobody does anything but the United States and we spend billions and billions of dollars, so they should be helping also and we did a waiver, you know that, right?

Q: Right, but they're still not —
A: I can't help that, because if we did a waiver than you have to get your people to act properly ... the waiver, but I do ask why are we the only country doing it?

Q: What's your timeline for the rest of judicial nominations?
A: Which nominations?
Q: The future judicial nominations for federal judge positions
A: Oh, we're putting them in rapidly and trying to get very good ones but we need judges that are not going to be demanding trials for every single illegal immigrant, we have millions of people that have come here illegally and we can't have a trial for every single person, that would be millions of trials.

The people elected me in a landslide ... we won every swing state...by big numbers...not only swing state but the popular vote by millions of votes...they elected me, this was the number one issue, and now we have judges that are radicalized and they're crazy because ... if you believe this, they want us to have a trial for every person that came illegally into our country. So they come into our country illegally and we're supposed to take weeks, I guess, and months to have a trial, you want every criminal, and we have murderers that are all over the country? I don't think the Supreme Court will stand for that, I can't believe it, because you know what? If they do, we're not gonna have a country.

Q: How will you make sure the judges you appoint are different than that?
A: All you can do is do the best you can, you know you try to appoint the best people to being judges or anything else that you appoint, but so far you know we're very disappointed with the decisions that come out, mostly from people appointed by others than me, but it's so hard to believe that you have a murderer, you know we have 11,888 or whatever the number is, we have thousands of murderers in this country, we're getting them out and they say 'we don't want them out, we want them to stay in our country until we have a trial, trials take years, they take years, it's so crazy, we won't have a country left, we can't have that happen.

Reporter: Is there any update on ...

Trump: Who are you with?

Reporter: The Wall Street Journal.

Trump. That's what I (thought). You people treat us so badly. The Wall Street Journal has truly gone to hell. Go ahead. It's a rotten newspaper.

Reporter: Are there any updates ...

Trump: Did you hear me what I said? It's a rotten newspaper.

Reporter: I heard.

Reporter: Are there any updates in talks with Vladimir Putin?

Trump: I wouldn't tell The Wall Street Journal because I'd be wasting my time. There are talks but I don't want to talk to the Wall Street Journal. Look, Wall Street Journal is China oriented and they're really bad for this country.

Reporter: You say you want a fair deal with China, what does a fair deal look like?

Trump: Well you know I want a fair deal with China but China has been ripping us off for many years. So maybe some things should be thought about, you know, a little bit of retribution. China's been ripping us off for many years. Ever since they started. To me I think it was the worst thing that Richard Nixon ever did. He's the one that got it started. And they're taking advantage of (us).

Reporter: Is there a number you want to see?

Trump: No

Reporter: Mexico's president is claiming that you offered to send U.S. troops into Mexico and she said she didn't want them in Mexico. Is that true? Can you tell us about those conversations?

Trump: So Mexico is saying that I offered to send U.S. troops into Mexico to take care of the cartels? She wants to know is that true? Do you think I'm going to answer that question?

Reporter: Thats's why I'm asking. We'll see.

Trump: I will answer it. It's true.

Reporter: And why did you do that?

Trump: Because they should be -- they are horrible people that have been killing people left and right and have been -- they've made a fortune on selling drugs and destroying our people. We lost 300,00 people last year to fentanyl and drugs. They are bad news. Yeah, that's true. If Mexico wanted help with the cartels we would be honored to go in and do it. I told her that. I would be honored to go in and do it. The cartels are trying to destroy our country. They're evil. You know, we had 300,000 people die last year from fentanyl and all that. We had hundreds -- we had millions of people brought into this country that shouldn't be here. The cartels brought them in. So if she said that I offered to do that, she's 100 percent (right.)

Reporter: And are disappointed that she denied that request?

Well she so afraid of the cartels she can't walk so you know that's the reason. And I think she's a lovely woman. The president of Mexico is a lovely woman but she is so afraid of the carets that she can't even think straight.

Reporter: Sir on Friday you told Kristen Welker that maybe a little girl this Christmas doesn't need 35 dolls, maybe they just get along with three? What do you tell the girls whose parents ...

Trump: All I'm saying is that a young lady ... doesn't need 37 dolls. She can be very happy with two or three or four or five. Let's not waste a lot of time ..

Reporter: What do you tell a girl whose parents who can't afford any?

Reporter: Who are you considering to be your more permanent national security adviser?

Trump: Well I have a lot of people that want the job, I can tell you. A lot of people say it really works in with what Marco is doing, but we have a lot of people. I'm going to be naming somebody.

Reporter: What the timeline on that?

Trump: I would say within six months.

Reporter: Would you like Rubio to be permanent?

Trump: He would do the job permanently. But I think -- you know it's an appropriate job.

Reporter: Are you considering Stephen Miller?

Trump: Stephen Miller is at the top of the totem pole. I mean, I think he's sort of indirectly already has that job. Because he has a lot to say about a lot of things. He's a very valued person in the administration, Stephen.

—END—

--

Trump was also asked about a road being named in his honor in Florida (wasn't aware but would be honored) and his next 100 day agenda (he talked about what has been accomplished and touted lower costs for energy, though acknowledged stroller prices aren't.)

Travel note 11*: POTUS deplanes / Marine One departure

*This is numbered 11 because the last was 10, please note your pooler accidentally skipped #9.

POTUS exited Air Force One at 1948, followed by his father in law, Commerce Secretary Lutnick, Karoline Leavitt and Sergio Gor.

He proceeded down the front air stairs, returned a salute from the Air Force officer (a Colonel, female) was there to greet him. He walked to a waiting HMX-1 helicopter, saluted the Marines at the foot of the forward steps, and boarded. The others mentioned above boarded through the aft set of steps. The Marine sentry on hand then closed both sets of stairs.

The helicopter, now with call sign Marine One, spun up its rotor roughly a minute later, began taxiing away at 1952 and was wheels up at 1954.

On behalf of myself and my fellow co-poolers from WSJ, NPR, NBC, NewsNation, Daily Signal and the photo wires, it's been a pleasure chronicling this weekend's POTUS travel for you and for posterity.

With that said, I leave you in the capable hands of the in-town pool who is dutifully waiting for POTUS on the South Lawn.

In-Town Pool Report 1 - M1 Arrival- took questions

Good Evening from the South Lawn where a rainbow appeared near the White House before M1's arrival.

Marine One landed at 8:03pm and POTUS walked off at 8:05pm with his father in law and stopped to take a few questions...will send more shortly. Otter link here: https://otter.ai/u/RsProJ0WMGJPf4Tc0YEKTwOxP3Q

Asked by Reuters' Steve Holland about reopening Alcatraz and where he got the idea:

"It's a symbol of law and order."

In-Town Pool Report 2 - Lid

A lid was called at 8:20pm

In-town pool report 2a: Quotes from South Lawn gaggle

Some odds and ends from POTUS's Sunday night South Lawn gaggle....

ALCATRAZ
"It's an idea I had."
"So many of these radicalized judges, they want to have trials for...every single person that's in our country illegally."

CRYPTO
Q: People say that you and your family should not be involved in Crypto companies while in office.

POTUS: "I'm a big fan of Crypto because I want to keep it away from China. Crypto is a whole new thing that started, you know not so long ago, but I'm very much in favor of Crypto because otherwise China is going to take it over and just like AI, just like to many other industries..."

AUSTRALIAN ELECTION
POTUS: "I don't know anything about the election...I can only say that he's been very, very nice to me, very respectful to me. I have no idea who the other person is that ran against him, and you know, we've had a very good relationship.

ASKED ABOUT CUTS TO 9/11 WORLD TRADE CENTER HEALTH PROGRAM
"I was the one in my first term that helped them get money and helped them really live a much better life. That was a very important thing I did in my first term, but I'm not aware of anything that may have been brought up."