Remarks in an Exchange With Reporters Following a Meeting With Republican Members of Congress

The President's Meeting With House Republicans

Q. Mr. President—Mr. President, Andy Harris said you didn't convince enough people to vote for the bill in there.

Q. He said he's still a no, Mr. President.

Q. He said you didn't adequately convince enough people to vote for the bill.

The President. What was the expression you used now?

Q. Andy Harris——

The President. "Were you embarrassed?" Is that what you said?

Q. No, I said Andy Harris said that you didn't adequately convince enough people to vote for the bill—the House Freedom Caucus chair.

The President. You mean—after this speech, you mean?

Q. After this speech. [Inaudible]

The President. Oh, yeah? He said? Well, why don't we see what the vote is? I think it was a great talk. It wasn't a speech. We talked about things.

Who do you work for?

Q. Notice.

The President. Who?

Q. Notice.

The President. I don't even know what the hell that is. [Laughter]

[At this point, several reporters began asking questions at once.]

I—you ought to get yourself a real job.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Let me tell you—let me tell you, I think we have unbelievable unity. I think we're going to get everything we want, and I think we're going to have a great victory. And this man has done a great job. And I think this was a tremendous session. You may want to say something.

Speaker of the House of Representatives J. Michael Johnson. Yes, it was a great meeting. The—the party is unified. The House Republican Conference is excited. Multiple standing ovations. They love this President. The people back home love what he's doing.

It's historic, and everybody understands the scope and the meaning of this. If we do not accomplish this mission, every one of you, all the American people, are going to have the highest tax increase that you've ever had. And among the debt ceiling cliff that's approaching and all the other problems, this is the bill to do it.

I think we're getting it done, Mr. President. And we thank you for coming.

The President. The Democrats want to raise your taxes. If this doesn't work, if this doesn't get the numbers that the Republicans want—and I think it does; I think it's all Republican votes—the Democrats are going to be raising your taxes by 68 percent. And they will not do the—we're going to have an 85-percent cut in drug costs. Eighty-five percent cut in drug costs.

The Democrats—the drug prices are going to go up. I can't imagine a Democrat not voting for this. I think the Democrats, if they don't vote for it, that means they're voting for an increase in drug prices—think of that—versus an 80 to an 85—maybe 75, but could be an 85-percent cut in drug costs. Okay?

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

The President's Outreach to House Republicans

Q. Will you—will you need to reach out to individual Members? Will you need to make a pitch to individual Members?

The President. I don't think so, no. That's what I did today.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

That's really what we did today. I think it was a really great—that was a meeting of love, let me tell you.

Speaker Johnson. It was.

The President. That was love in that room. There was no shouting. There was—I think it was a meeting of love.

There were a couple of things that we talked about specifically where some people felt a little bit one way or the other. Not a big deal. And I covered them. It wasn't so much a speech. I covered certain points.

And I think it was—I'd be very surprised if it was——

The President's Legislative Agenda

Q. You—you told them you were losing patience, though. Are you losing patience with some of these Members?

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

The President. No, I didn't tell them. Who told you I said I'm losing patience——

Q. That's what we heard inside the room.

The President. But that's a lie.

Q. You said—you didn't say you were losing patience?

The President. Wait a minute. Wait. Wait. Who's telling you that?

Q. What we heard from people inside the room.

Speaker Johnson. It's not true.

The President. Oh, really? Yes? It's totally true. I never used the term. I didn't say "losing." I didn't even talk about it. In fact, it's the opposite. I think we're going to get it done. I'm not losing patience. We're ahead of schedule. Anybody that told you that is a liar. Okay?

I never mentioned——

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I never mentioned the word "losing patience," because I'm not losing patience. We're ahead of schedule.

Q. That's why I asked you, sir, because I wanted to get clarity.

The President. Well, then why don't you go back to your source and tell them they're liars, if the source even exists.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

The President's Legislative Agenda

Q. If this bill passes the House——

The President. Yes.

Q. ——Senators are already talking about making a number of changes over in their chamber.

The President. Sure. That can always happen.

Q. Is that okay?

The President. Yes.

Q. Or do you want them to swallow this bill?

The President. Yes. In some cases, they have things that I like even better. No, it always happens. There'll be some——

Q. Mr. President——

The President. There'll be some changes. But John Thune and Mike have been very closely aligned on this. They've been moving it up together.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Medicaid and Medicare Programs

Q. Mr. President, you apparently—apparently, you said—apparently, you said, "Don't—don't F with Medicaid," apparently, you did say in the room. There is some concern among some Republicans, including Senator Josh Hawley, that this could impact benefits and they could even amount to, quote, "hidden tax on the"——

The President. I didn't say——

Q. ——"working poor."

The President. Here's what I said. Here's what I said.

Q. I'm wondering if you're——

The President. Here's what I said. You want to hear what I said?

Q. ——what you want to say to those Members who are worried about——

The President. I said: waste——

Q. ——blowback for supporting this bill?

The President. ——fraud, and abuse for Medicaid. If you find waste or fraud or abuse, we want to strengthen Medicaid. We want to strengthen Medicare. Waste, fraud, and abuse.

The Democrats will let illegals be on. They'll destroy it. It will be destroyed. They want to have illegal immigrants be on. And if you do that—because that's not—it wasn't designed for that. Waste, fraud, and abuse.

Health Insurance Coverage/Prescription Drug Costs

Q. Can you guarantee that your voters who supported your reelection, working class voters, will not lose health insurance under this bill?

The President. Oh, they won't lose health insurance. Not only that, remember, I'm cutting drug prices by 85 percent. And right now I've—I'm saving it. I'm saving the whole thing, because I did something that nobody was willing to do. Other countries pay a tiny fraction what we do, and I instituted favored nations. We're now going to pay the lowest in the world. We're going to be the equivalent of the lowest country in the world.

People go to London, they go to Canada, they go to other countries—many other countries—because they want to buy their pharmaceutical products, their drugs at a fraction of the cost. Now we're going to have the lowest cost anywhere in the world, and nobody else would do that but me.

And that might be an election—by itself, might be election-winning.

Now, when you add that in, when you put that into Medicaid and Medicare, we've just strengthened Medicare and Medicaid, and the Democrats won't do that. You know why? Because they're taken care of by the drug companies, and the ones that are taken care of are hardline. Some Republicans get money from drug companies. And that's okay, because they're okay with it.

I talked about it. The drug companies take care of everybody. It's the biggest lobby, most powerful lobby in the world. There's no lobby like that.

But the Republicans are okay with it. Not only okay with it—they love it. It was time.

So we're going to cut drug prices by—from 75 to 85. In some cases, even more than that. You know, I was telling the story that—and some of you were at that news conference. I gave a news conference where I was the first one in 18 years to cut drug costs for the year, and they were, like, a quarter of a point to half a point less. And I was very proud of that. Now I'm cutting them by 80, 85 percent, because I stopped the scam.

This was a scam between the middlemen and the drug companies. This was a giant scam. And—by the way, and other countries, because other countries fought for this. This was a giant scam, and we're not going to have it.

So remember this. Go back and tell your people, if you'd like to, that the Republican Party is cutting the cost of drugs by as much as 85 percent. Not 8 percent. Not 5 percent. Not 1 percent. Eighty-five percent. And you're going to have the lowest drug prices anywhere in the world because I'm doing favored nations, and it's all done. I signed it.

And the Democrats will unsign it. And the drug prices are going to go up. And I think, on that issue alone, you can't lose an election.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Representative LaMonica McIver

Q. [Inaudible]—who say that your DOJ is weaponizing with the arrest of a Congresswoman—Democratic Congresswoman?

The President. Oh, give me a break. Did you see her? She was out of control.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

You know, those days are over. The days of woke——

Q. Did you tell her to do that?

The President. The days of woke—no, I didn't. The days of woke are over.

That woman—I don't—I have no idea who she is. That woman was out of control. She was shoving Federal agents. She was out of control.

The days of that crap are over in this country. We're going to have law and order.

Grocery Costs/Egg Prices/Former President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

Q. Mr. President, thank you very much. You campaigned on lowering the price of groceries. How can you justify cutting food assistance in this bill?

The President. Let me just tell you, the cut is going to give everybody much more food, because prices are coming way down. Groceries are down. Eggs—you told me about eggs. You asked me a question about eggs my first week. You said, "Eggs." I said: "I just got here. Tell me about eggs." And it was going through the roof. You know that eggs now are way down. Everybody's buying eggs. Grocery is down. Energy is down.

Gasoline is now—buying—they're buying gasoline now for $1.99. When I—if you look back, you'll see $3.50, $4.

This country—we were going to lose this country. Our country now is respected all over the world. All over the world, we're respected. We were a laughingstock. The entire world was a—we were a laughingstock.

I went to the Middle East, and those rulers of those three countries are very powerful people, very big people, very rich people. They respect our country again.

China was going to take them over. You know, China was going to get all the of—they were going to get into the—if you look, Saudi Arabia—you take a—take a look—little look what was happening with Qatar and U.A.E. Great people—unbelievable people, unbelievable leaders. But they were abandoned by this country. And they're not going to China anymore. They love us, and we love them. We're going to take care of them, and they're going to take care of us.

We came back with $5.1 trillion—trillion. Every other President would have come back having spent $5.1 trillion, as usual.

And remember this, we were losing $5 billion dollars a day under the past administration. I have to be a little careful the way I talk, because there's a lot of anger about that administration.

And by the way, you ought to—the real question: Who ran the autopen? Okay? Who ran the autopen? Because the things that were signed were signed illegally, in my opinion. I think we've just proved that.

But our country is respected again. All over the world, we're respected. We were laughed at seven months ago. Then you had November 5, and our country is respected again.

Thank you very much, everybody.