Remarks at a Lunch Meeting With Governors and an Exchange With Reporters

The President. We keep busy. We keep nice and busy. We just had one of these in another room. And as you know, this is a great group of Governors, very distinguished Governors. And we're having a meeting. We had a victory just a few moments ago on the Internet sales tax. A lot of States and cities now are going to be benefiting from what's going on. And it's a big, big victory for the Governors in this room. I know they wanted to see that happen. And I don't think it was a surprising victory. It was the right thing to do. It was a 5-4 decision in the Supreme Court. It just came down. So I have a very—a lot of happy faces in front of me. That's good. It's going to be a very good meal.

But I want to thank you all for being here. I thought I'd go down, while the press is here—I thought I'd go—maybe, we'll go around the room.

And, Mike, congratulations on the ascension.

Governor Michael L. Parson of Missouri. Thank you, Mr. President.

The President. Something I hear you really deserve. And congratulations.

Gov. Parson. Thank you. Thank you very much

The President. You might want to say a few words to the press.

Gov. Parson. Well, first, it's an honor to be here today to be with the—for the President of the United States to take time out for the Governors across this country, and especially from my home State of Missouri, who—we're so proud of the leadership in Washington right now, and the things you're doing. So we're proud of that.

But you know, really today is—you know, for us it's infrastructure and jobs in Missouri, like for many of the other Governors who are setting here. But that's what's important to me, and I just appreciate having an opportunity to be here with the President of the United States to be able to discuss those issues.

The President. Thank you very much. I hear Josh is doing pretty well out there.

Gov. Parson. Josh is doing well——

The President. That's good.

Gov. Parson. ——and we're going to be working hard for him.

The President. That's good. I hear he's doing really, really, really great.

Gov. Parson. He is.

The President. And, Matt, you have sort of set records in what you're doing in your great state that I love very much, Kentucky. A special place. And you really have done a job.

Say a few words, please.

Governor Matthew G. Bevin of Kentucky. Thank you. Sure. I'll simply say this: I mean, I'm grateful. And what has brought many of us to town is SelectUSA and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has recognized that in a world of geopolitical instability, there really is nowhere that is as likely to have upside potential for investors as is the United States, period. And so we, as States, I mean, we compete with one another, but we're all on the same team at the end of the day,

which is to bring investors to the United States. And when someone comes to any one State, all of us benefit to some degree, given the integrated supply chain.

So I'm excited to be here talking to a whole lot of investors from around the world, and I'm grateful, as was just noted, to have a President and an administration and a Vice President who have been CEOs and leaders of States and businesses who understand how business gets done and who listen to Governors and who delegate responsibility to States, because this is the greatness of America.

And so, I just—again, I appreciate your willingness to hear us and your willingness to support us as we work to make each of our respective States stronger economically.

The President. And Matt, I might add, has a record number of new businesses going into Kentucky. And I want to take full credit for that, but I have to give him at least some. [Laughter] You have done a really fantastic job. So thank you very much.

Gov. Bevin. Thank you.

The President. Appreciate it.

Ivanka, do you have anything to say?

Assistant to the President Ivanka M. Trump. Well, it's a great honor to see so many of you here. And we've spent a lot of time with many of the people around the table, particularly on the issue of workforce development. Because as the economy is growing so rapidly and it's so robust, for the first time in history, there are more vacant jobs than there are people to fill them.

So I've worked with so many of you on different programs within your State that ensure that people have the skills, training, the vocational education they need to fill those jobs. And we have a lot more great work that's going to be coming out of this White House in collaboration with each of you.

So it's really an honor to be here today to discuss that and to discuss the skills that are needed in your States and how we can help you. So thank you for being here.

The President. Thank you very much. Thanks, Ivanka.

Governor.

Governor Gary R. Herbert of Utah. Well, Mr. President, thank you for hosting us. We're honored to be here with you, as always. And thanks for what you're doing. I'll just add to the conversation by saying this: You've done a lot of good things to help improve America's outcome. "Make America Great" as a slogan is becoming a reality.

[At this point, Gov. Herbert continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

But your administration, much better than the previous administration, has reached out to States and said, "We want to know what you think, what you can do, and maybe put more responsibility back to the States." That's, I think, a secret for continued success for this country.

The President. Great. Well, great job. How is the million square miles that we just gave over—ceded over to you? [Laughter] How is that doing? Everything good?

Gov. Herbert. You know, the—again, the public land stays public land.

The President. Yes.

Gov. Herbert. And we want to make sure that the narrative is such that it's always been public lands and it will continue to be public lands. And it's just going to be better for the local

people there as far as how they can manage and help the Federal Government manage it, particularly when it comes to the needs for the Navajos and the Native Americans.

The President. Right.

Gov. Herbert. This is really a win-win. So we thank you very much for what you've done to help us.

The President. I've had so many calls from people in Utah. They're so happy about, you know, what took place. And they never thought it was going to happen.

Gov. Herbert. Finally, somebody in Washington who's paying attention——

The President. Yes.

Gov. Herbert. ——to the public land States. We're not many; we're just a few. And if you're east of the Rocky Mountains, it's "Public land, what's that?" But in the Intermountain West, it's a big deal for us, for endangered species, access to energy development, tourism, and travel. I mean, all those things need to be put together in a balanced approach, with common sense. And you've helped bring the common sense.

The President. Well, your two great Senators pushed me very hard on that. And when I looked at it, I said "That's a natural." So it's good. So say hello to everybody.

Gov. Herbert. Well, I will do that. And I think you're soon going to have another friend that's going to support you too.

The President. Good.

Gov. Herbert. And Mitt Romney is——

The President. It's all working out, right? It's all moving along.

Gov. Herbert. Yes.

The President. Good. I think he'll be excellent. I endorsed him, and I think he'll be excellent.

Gov. Herbert. I admire him. And he's mentioned that.

The President. Good. That's good.

Gov. Herbert. So, it's working.

The President. It's got to be working. Good, say hello to him.

Gov. Herbert. I will. Thank you, President.

The President. Thank you, Governor.

Governor Clement L. "Butch" Otter of Idaho. Mr. President, let me join with the rest of my colleagues in thanking you very much for this opportunity. A little bit about Idaho. First off, I've had more Cabinet members in Idaho—I'm in my eleventh-and-a-half year as Governor——

The President. Wow!

Gov. Otter. ——and 6 years in Congress, 14 years as Lieutenant Governor. And this is the first time in all of that time that I've had more Cabinet members in Idaho than ever before. Your folks—because like Gary, like Utah, Idaho is 65 percent Federal Government, either Forest Service or Interior. And your folks have been fantastic. In fact, they govern more of Idaho than I do, as far as the land mass goes.

The President. It's probably true.

Gov. Otter. But it really has been on a big upswing for us. We're now at 2.9 percent unemployment. We're the fastest growing State in the Nation in terms of numbers.

The President. Wow.

Gov. Otter. The fastest growth in personal income in the Nation, again for another year. And right now our economy is rocking around 8.6 percent.

The President. Wow, that's fantastic.

Gov. Otter. And I've got $500 million in the bank. [Laughter]

The President. That's fantastic. That's not bad, right? That's a little different than a lot of places.

Gov. Otter. And I got a 67-percent funding—pardon me, a 97-percent funding on my retirement fund.

The President. Well, that's good.

Gov. Otter. For public people. So everything is great. Keep it up.

The President. Boy, you are doing well. [Laughter] Congratulations.

Gov. Otter. Keep it up.

The President. You've done a fantastic job. And thank you very much for being here.

Gov. Otter. Thank you.

The President. That's a great place. I like it. I guess they like me, based on the numbers. But I tell you what, we've had great experience there.

What makes it so good? What's doing so well? Because you are at—you're just about at the top of the heap in terms of percentage gain.

Gov. Otter. Right. We are.

The President. What's making it so good?

Gov. Otter. Well, one of the things that we did in 2009, I created the first community college in Idaho for workforce development, because I had a bunch of jobs I couldn't fill, even though I was at, like, 2.9—pardon me, I was at 9.2-percent unemployment at the time.

But we had the jobs, but we just didn't have the skills. So I created this community college called the College of Western Idaho, about 8 miles from where I was born. And we started off with 1,500 students. Today, we've got 33,000 students.

The President. Wow. Boy.

Gov. Otter. So I created another community college. So every portal of education, every portal of skilled development for the needs of our workforce we're creating. And right now our—my workforce is over 850,000. It was less than 700,000 when I became Governor.

The President. Fantastic job. Thank you very much. That's a great job. You should be proud of it.

Gov. Otter. Great. Thank you.

The President. Mike.

Vice President Michael R. Pence. Well, Mr. President, I'd just join you in saying it's a privilege to welcome some of America's most outstanding Governors back to the White House. And, Governor Parson, a particular welcome on your first time in this capacity as well.

I think Governor Herbert said it well. We have a President who believes in state-based innovation and reform. And these Governors represent some of the best and most dynamic leadership. We've seen your States not only prosper, as you've advanced policies at the State level and taken the new freedom and flexibility that this administration has given you in so many ways to improve the lives of people of your State.

But also, I want to express appreciation for the way, in good times and in challenging times, the Governors sitting around this table have worked closely with this administration on behalf of the American people. So I'd just——

The President. It is true.

Vice President Pence. ——extend the warm welcome of the President and our whole administration to each one of you. And thanks for your great leadership.

The President. Thank you, Mike.

So Scott Walker has done an incredible job as Governor. And I went to Scott, and I said, "Scott, I think we have Foxconn; we could get them." And when I brought Foxconn—now, Foxconn makes the laptops and the iPhones for Apple, and it's one of the great companies of the world, one of the biggest companies in the world. And I said a long time ago that Tim Cook, I won't—of Apple—I said, "I will not be satisfied until you start building your plants and others start building."

And you are really—as usual, you're the first. They are building the biggest plant you've ever seen in Wisconsin. And you know, when I gave them over to you, I said, "I don't have to make another call," because it was like a vice, right? And you pulled it off.

So I want to congratulate Scott Walker.

Governor Scott K. Walker of Wisconsin. Thanks.

The President. That is going to be—well, it's 15,000 jobs, I think, in that one place. And they're going to be—from what I'm hearing, they're already talking about expansion. And we flew over a site, and it was very interesting—together. I said, "What's that?" There was a car company that had left; it's this big site, good location. I said, "That would be good." And you said, "That's the site."

But when I handed them over to Scott Walker, it was over. I didn't have to waste any more time, right? You took it over, and they're building. How far advanced are they?

Gov. Walker. Well, the great thing is, they've already started moving around, preparing the site. Wilbur Ross, it was great to have me. And he brought one of the individuals in from Foxconn today at SelectUSA and highlighted that. It's the largest economic development project in the State's history, one of the largest in American history. And it's the largest foreign direct investment in America, and it would not have happened without you.

You brought it to America. We just grabbed the ball and ran from there. And so we're absolutely thrilled about that. We know it will not just be the jobs——

The President. Such an exciting project.

Gov. Walker. It will be the ripple effect, right? It's all the others. A good example: Oshkosh Corporation, which is also based obviously in Wisconsin, they make most of the armored vehicles for the military. They do business every year with about 700 companies in our State and 140

different communities. About $300 million a year worth of business. When Foxconn is fully operational, they'll do four times that.

The President. Wow—isn't that fantastic.

Gov. Walker. So just a massive effect all across the State and really across the Midwest. So the two quick things for you: to say thank you, other than just having us here today. One, Ivanka, you talked about. And last year you joined us at one of our technical colleges with you, Mr. President. In advance of Foxconn coming, we've got 2.8-percent unemployment, the lowest we've ever hard in the history of the State, one of the lowest in America. And so workforce for us is just critically important.

[Gov. Walker continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

And the other thing is—it hasn't come up here today—but I want to tell you personally, on behalf of the people of our State, thank you. Because the tax cut in our State, the typical family—not what you hear in Washington, but what our Department of Revenue showed—a family of four, two parents working, on average about $45,000 of pay each—so good middle class jobs. Two parents working, two kids at home, save $2,508 each year because of your tax cut. That is not crumbs. Those are real dollars that will help working class families in our State. And we appreciate it.

The President. Well, I appreciate it. And I have to say about Scott Walker, he was the first one to tell me that they're having a hard time getting into Canada with their dairy products. Right? And Scott really brought it to my attention better than anybody else could have. And we're going to get that situation straightened out. You know, it's not a pleasant thing, but they've gotten away with it for a long time. And it's not fair where they send their product to us, but we can't send our product to them.

And Scott Walker did not like it, and I don't like it, and we're going to get it fixed. So let, in particular, your farmers know that I'm with them. There may be a little bit of pain, initially. But ultimately, we're opening up markets that they never even thought possible.

You know, Canada charges a 275-percent tariff on dairy products. You do a lot of dairy products.

Gov. Walker. Absolutely.

The President. And that's not fair. That's like putting a barrier up. That's like saying don't even bother. That's the same thing as a barrier. So you know we're working on that. Right?

Gov. Walker. And the—I told Secretary Ross earlier today that the best thing you said at the G-7 is, the ultimate goal is let's just get rid of all tariffs.

The President. I said that. I said it.

Gov. Walker. You were brilliant to point that out. That's the ultimate answer.

The President. They thought I was a big tariff guy. So I said: "I have an idea, folks. Get rid of all tariffs and all subsidies. Get rid of everything. Get rid of—"and they weren't very fast to take that. Right? [Laughter] They weren't too fast. I wasn't surprised. But they weren't—but a lot of people liked that.

Thank you very much. Great job, Scott.

Governor. He has the easiest job in the whole world. [Laughter] He's the Governor of Puerto Rico. Right?

Governor Ricardo A. Rosselló Nevares of Puerto Rico. Right. That's right. Thank you so much.

The President. And I think we helped you a lot, and you're doing a great job. You—that is a tough job.

Gov. Rosselló. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for this opportunity and for allowing us to have constant communication with your staff. I think it's been critical so that we can voice our concerns so that they can obstacle bust. I know Doug over here has been very helpful. And there has been some very challenging times in Puerto Rico. I think everybody knows this. And we are now at a path where we're starting to reach normalcy. And now it's really the big opportunity to rebuild.

First of all, I want to thank you for signing the supplemental bill that gives Puerto Rico the resources to rebuild. And we've had a phenomenal relationship with HUD.

Now I would just like to take a few seconds to voice, at least, what my vision for Puerto Rico is in the coming years.

The President. Go ahead.

Gov. Rosselló. I see a Puerto Rico, as you see the United States, open for business. Let's take away the obstacles. Let's eliminate the bureaucracy. Bevin has the little scissors over there. We have them in Puerto Rico as well. See, in Puerto Rico—that becomes the connector of the Americas. Of course, you know we're a part of the United States, but we can expand in South and Central America as well. It could be a very great opportunity. I see Puerto Rico as the center for the human cloud. Jobs are becoming geographically independent. Folks, I think, are going to want to live in Puerto Rico with all that we have to offer and a platform for innovation.

[Gov. Rosselló continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

And I think this is a great legacy that your administration could pursue that gives a path forward to the people of Puerto Rico so that we can finally have that equality and end what we call the unfinished business of American democracy. And using your words, sir, you want to make America great again. I think we can make it greater and expanding it to include Puerto Rico as a 51st State.

The President. Well, thank you, Ricardo, very much. And Ricardo is going to guarantee us two Republican Senators. [Laughter] Is that incorrect? Boy, that process may go very quickly. [Laughter] It's going to be a very quick process.

Gov. Rosselló. Start the campaign, and I guarantee Puerto Rico will be a battleground State. [Laughter]

The President. You've really worked very hard.

Gov. Rosselló. Thank you. And——

The President. And we've been there together. You know, Ricardo inherited a power plant that was virtually useless. And it was in bankruptcy. It's been in bankruptcy for a long period of time. And many of the other places were in bankruptcy, and tremendous amounts of money owed. And you got in. You've been working really hard. He was very brilliant. He blamed the hurricane for destroying the power plant. And he's doing very well. I'll tell you what, the people of Puerto Rico are being well represented by this man, because we like him and we respect him.

Gov. Rosselló. Thank you, Mr. President.

The President. And we are working on that power plant. And it's—you know, it's very big numbers. It was bad before the hurricane. It was bad after the hurricane. But you know, we have some great talent over there.

But just say hello to the people. They're great people. They've endured a lot. That was as bad a situation as I've ever seen. But it's getting done.

Gov. Rosselló. Well, thank you. Thank you for your commitment. Again, you've always answered our calls. The Vice President as well, and your staff. And right now I can announce that yesterday I signed a bill to empower the transformation and privatization of the energy grid so that we can start not only making it a little bit better, but actually make it into a model of the America.

So again, Puerto Rico is the place to be, and we want to be full partners with the United States. That next step would be to become a State.

The President. Great job. Great job, Ricardo.

Gov. Rosselló. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President.

The President. Thank you very much.

Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Douglas L. Hoelscher. Mr. President, we've got a great group of governors here today who want to work in partnership with you on opioids and combating the opioid epidemic, on workforce, on apprenticeships, vocational training, and they're really good partners and they want help make their States better in partnership with you and your administration.

The President. Thank you very much. And you know, while we have Alex here—and we did it a little while ago—but if you could give just a brief summary of what we've done on health care because it's so exciting. It's association health care. It's millions and millions of people. It's never been done on this scale, and it's actually getting larger. It's going to take a tremendous group of out of the disaster known as Obamacare.

And Alex Acosta, please. Secretary of Labor.

Secretary of Labor R. Alexander Acosta. Certainly, Mr. President. We were chatting about it briefly before you walked in. This is so important. The current health care system is really hard on the employees of small businesses. The regulatory burden that Obamacare imposes on small businesses is so much greater than large companies. And if you think about it, why are we putting the regulatory burden on these small businesses of all, instead of, you know, spreading it equally or reducing it equally?

[Secretary Acosta continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

And you know, we are—you know, as I look around the table, we've been partners on so many issues—WIOA issues in Indiana, opioid issues. Our approach, the President's approach, has been to work with each of you. The issues of Indiana and Idaho are different. You know, Puerto Rico and Oklahoma are different. It's not a one-size-fits-all.

We'll work with your States to make sure that these association health plans can flourish. It's going to save thousands of dollars per employee.

The President. It's going to be millions of people signing up, associations. And you can have an association of one, also, the way we have it. But it will be millions of people. We're actually now expanding the groups, and we're going to start. And starting in a few months, you'll get an even expanded group.

It'll be tremendously competitive. It will cost the Government nothing. And people will get a much better price than they ever dreamt possible. And it's a very, very exciting thing. It's as big as you've—you'll ever see. And when the expansion goes into effect in a couple of months, that's going to really show something.

So I want to just congratulate you, Alex. You have done—you have worked so hard on this. But this will be millions of people that are going to come off and use this as an alternative to the really failed Obamacare.

Secretary Acosta. That's right.

The President. And step by step, that's being dismantled. Essentially, it is dismantled now. Once we got rid of the individual mandate—which was such a disaster for all of you—where people had the privilege of paying a fortune so that they didn't have to buy insurance. Okay? They got nothing. They just paid. And that's gone.

And that's something we never think of, but we should. Mike, we should add that when we talk about the tax cuts. That's part of the tax cut. Nobody ever talks about adding that. Where people were paying for the individual mandate a lot of money so that they don't have to go in and pay for health care—so they were paying not to have health care. If you add that to the tax benefit, which, frankly, nobody ever thought of, but I think you can put that because it is in the same tax cut bill. So I think we should maybe put that down in the formula.

But, Alex, it's so exciting, and people will save thousands and thousands of dollars and have much better health care than they had with Obamacare. Thank you very much.

Kellyanne, could you say a couple of words about the opioids—[inaudible].

Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway. Yes.

The President. ——about the opioids epidemic?

Counselor to the President Conway. Thank you, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President.

All the Governors around the table represent very different populations. They have different geography, politics, certainly demography, but they all share this crisis in common. And we call it the "crisis next door."

And, Mr. President, due to your leadership, just this week in Congress, bills are being passed, overwhelmingly bipartisan. Congress had previously harkened your call to allocate $6 billion for opioid funding. That's on top of the SAMHSA grants. That's on top of CARE Act, Cures—21st Century Cures Act.

[Counselor to the President Conway continued her remarks, concluding as follows.]

Finally, since Secretary Acosta is here and we're talking about workforce development, these go hand in hand. We have 6.7 million unfilled available jobs right now. Many people are failing the drug tests, and we're trying to treat the whole person. This is why, in addition to DHS and DOJ and the VA and, obviously, HHS, we've involved in our opioids Cabinet activity HUD and Department of Labor so that we're treating the whole person, connecting them with the skills training, the education, the opportunities they need, if they are fortunate enough to go through drug court programs or treatment and recovery programs.

Thank you, Mr. President.

The President. Well, thank you very much. And you know, the First Lady now is at the border.

Counselor to the President Conway. Yes, indeed.

The President. Because she doesn't like what she was seeing, and I don't like what we were seeing, and we have to get together and do something on immigration. And as you folks know better than anybody, that has to take place very quickly. But she's there, and you've worked very closely with her.

And I'll say something about Kellyanne. She's a warrior. We can send her into the most unfriendly territory of media, and it's like—don't worry, I won't use any names—but don't worry about it: "Oh, I'd love to do it." Whereas other people, we say, "Would you do so-and-so" and "Oh, could you please pick Kellyanne?" [Laughter] You are a warrior, Kellyanne, and you have been for a long time.

Counselor to the President Conway. I love the country. Thank you for this opportunity to serve it.

The President. Great success. Great.

And, Eric, you have very big shoes to fill from Mike. Eric is the Governor of Indiana and took Mike's place. How's he doing, Mike? Good job?

Vice President Pence. He's doing an excellent job, Mr. President.

The President. The word is very strong.

Vice President Pence. He really is.

The President. Very strong.

Vice President Pence. Very proud.

The President. Eric?

Governor Eric J. Holcomb of Indiana. Thank you, Mr. President.

The President. How are you doing today?

Gov. Holcomb. Thank you for having us back. And I have to be somewhat diplomatic about talking about all the records we're breaking in Indiana. [Laughter]

The President. You have to be careful.

Gov. Holcomb. Especially in present company. [Laughter]

The President. Be careful, Eric.

Gov. Holcomb. But I'm proud to be at this table, I'm proud to stand with you, and proud to be in the room with another Hoosier, as the Vice President.

[Gov. Holcomb continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

And I wanted to say thank you to your whole administration. Secretary Acosta has been to our State multiple times, and we just received a waiver that allows us to start driving the ship on workforce development programs.

The President. That's fantastic.

Gov. Holcomb. We have streamlined, aligned, integrated according to what our State's needs are. We have a 3.2-percent unemployment rate. That's about 105,000 Hoosiers. We've got about 105,000 unfilled jobs that we've got to connect people to the skills to get to those jobs. They're there waiting on them. This is going to allow us to do that faster. So we didn't have a day to waste. And you made it possible for not wasting any time whatsoever. Thank you.

The President. Well, thank you, Eric. And you're doing fantastically and we appreciate it.

And Mary Fallin has been my friend—Governor of Oklahoma—and been my friend right from the beginning

Governor Mary Fallin of Oklahoma. That's right.

The President. And I remember the speech. One of my earliest speeches, I called Mary, I said, "How many people are showing up?" She said, "At least 35,000." I said, "What?" "35,000." In the park. Remember the park?

Gov. Fallin. Yes, I do.

The President. And what a scene that was. We had a band shell, and the people where surrounding it. You couldn't see on the other side. But Mary has been so incredible and done a great job as Governor of Oklahoma.

And what would you like to say?

Gov. Fallin. Well, thank you, Mr. President. And, Vice President, it's always great to see you too. And I have to say, I'm finishing up my last year as Governor of the State of Oklahoma, and so I've had the opportunity to work with Presidents before, but the amount of time that you, the Vice President, and your Cabinet gives to the Governors is truly remarkable.

I mean, I was just sitting there thinking about how many times I've seen you in the past 30 days or had an invitation to come to the White House in the last 30 days. It's been about four or five times in 30 days. And that's pretty remarkable for a Governor——

The President. That's because you keep rejecting us. Otherwise—[laughter].

Gov. Fallin. Just one time. Just one time I was busy. Just one time. Keep inviting me back.

The President. I know. I will. [Laughter]

Gov. Fallin. But in all seriousness, to be able to sit down like this, with the Governors one-on-one, and to hear from you about your vision, your policies, where you're going—which we've done quite a bit on this weekend's SelectUSA—and then have the opportunity to talk to you one-on-one about the issues important to our individual States and how we can work together as a team has really made a difference.

[Gov. Fallin continued her remarks, concluding as follows.]

And of course, the workforce issue is incredibly important, and your leadership and your vision and your emphasis on apprenticeships and workforce training and really reaching down to the younger folks to show them all the different career opportunities is helping us fill those empty jobs and being able to meet the needs of the employers so we can grow our jobs in America.

So a lot of great things happening. The energy sector is coming back strong——

The President. Right. That's right.

Gov. Fallin. ——in the State of Oklahoma. We appreciate that. And thank you for a lot of the policies that are making that possible in our State. So we just appreciate the opportunity to be able to come and visit with you today and look forward to having further discussions.

The President. Thank you, Mary. So good. Such a great job you've done.

These are terrific people—terrific—and really successful Governors. And thank you all very much. Appreciate it.

President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin of Russia

Q. Mr. President, will you be meeting with Mr. Putin in July?

The President. We're looking at the possibility, yes. We are looking at the—and with other leaders throughout the world. But we are looking at that possibility, yes.

Border Security

Q. Can you clarify if you're going to continue prosecuting families who come across the border, the parents, when they come across the border?

The President. We have to have a very tough policy; otherwise, you have millions and millions of people pouring into our country. We can't have that. We have no choice. We have to have a very strong border. If we don't, you'll have millions and millions of people. It'll look what's happening today look like child's play. It will be a terrible thing if we ever did that.

So we have to be very, very strong on the border. If we don't do it, you will be inundated with people and you really won't have a country anymore. You know, without borders, you don't have a country. I've said it for a long time. And you would, effectively, not have a country.

Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, everybody.