Remarks by the Vice President in an Exchange with Reporters on Departure from Agra, India

Q: Hello, Mr. Vice President.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Hey, guys. Good afternoon. It's great to be here in Agra.

We obviously just visited the Taj Mahal with my family, one of the most beautiful historic sites in the world. It was really special to get to see it, especially with the kids, especially as completely deserted as it was. Obviously, President Trump visited last time he was in India, and it was a great honor to see it.

We've had a very successful visit.

I want to just, of course, issue our condolences to the people of Kashmir who were affected by this terrible terrorist attack. The president has already spoken with Prime Minister Modi. I believe I'll be speaking with him later this afternoon. And obviously, we're providing whatever assistance and help we can provide to the government, to the people of India.

But this has been a wonderful visit. The people here have been so welcoming, so kind to us. We're sad to leave but excited to get back home.

Q: Sir, the pope obviously passed away a few days ago.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

Q: Are you planning to attend his funeral.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: So, I'm not currently planning to attend his funeral. I'm not currently planning to not attend his funeral. We just haven't really thought that much about when his funeral is going to be and who's going to attend from our government.

I mean, let me just say a couple of words about the Holy Father. Obviously, I was able to see him very briefly the morning of Easter Sunday. I knew he was very ill. I didn't realize how sick he was.

The thing that I -- I will always remember Pope Francis for is that he was a great pastor. People on the margins, poor people, people suffering from diseases, they saw in Pope Francis an advocate and, I think, a true expression of Christian love.

So, we're very saddened by it. Obviously, our condolences to the Catholics all over the world, but especially back home, who loved and honored the Holy Father.

Q: What does it feel like knowing you were maybe one of the last officials to meet him before he died?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yeah, you know, I -- I thought a lot about that. I mean, it's -- it's pretty crazy, actually. And obviously, when I saw him, I didn't know that he had less than 24 hours still on this Earth. I think it was a great blessing. But, you know, I -- I think he -- he saw a lot of people. I think he affected a lot of lives. And I -- I try to just, you know, remember that I -- I was lucky that I got to shake his hand and tell him that I pray for him every day, because I -- I did and I do.

Q: In his -- in his final Easter message that the archbishop read in Saint Peter's Square, you know, he talked about not stirring up contempt against the vulnerable and migrants, and the logic of fear not being something world leaders should yield to. Do you have any thoughts on that? And has his death caused you at all to reflect on the policies of the Trump administration in any new way?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I -- I think that obviously a lot of people, especially in the American press, want to make the Holy Father, his entire legacy, and even his death about American politics. I think he was obviously a much broader figure than the United States of America. He represents over a billion Catholics worldwide.

Yes, I'm aware that he had some disagreements with some of the policies of our administration. He also had a lot of agreements with some of the policies of our administration. I'm not going to soil the per- -- the man's legacy by talking about politics. I think he was a great Christian pastor, and that's how I choose to remember the Holy Father.

Q: Would you like to see the next pope continue in the direction that Francis took the church? Or would you like a more traditional path?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I -- you know, I -- I won't pretend to give guidance to the cardinals on who they should select as the next pope. We've got plenty of issues to focus on in the United States.

I'll just say a prayer for wisdom, because I obviously want them to pick the right person. I want them to pick somebody who will be good for the world's Catholics. But I'll make them l- -- I'll let them make that decision, and obviously they're entitled to do so.

Q: And just a question on Secretary Pete Hegseth. There's been staffers who've come out saying that he's not fit for the job. Do you still have confidence in the secretary?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Look, I have 100 percent confidence in the secretary. I know the president does and, really, the entire team does.

It's one of the most bizarre things about the Hegseth nomination. From the very beginning, the media seemed to want to tank it. And when they failed and he got confirmed, they decided they wanted to keep on that effort to destroy Pete Hegseth as a man and as the secretary of Defense.

I think he's doing a great job. I think that he's brought a certain spirit back to the Department of Defense. And if you look at our military recruitment numbers -- that's, in my -- in my view, the best testament to his leadership of the military is that, for the first time in a very long time, we don't have terrible recruitment problems in the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force. That's a great testament to his leadership, and I wish, frankly, the press talked more about that and not about anonymous sourcing from random staffers.

Q: Are there any updates on trade talks you can share with us on how the negotiations are going here or elsewhere?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, look, we're talking to everybody, especially our most significant trading partners. I believe Secretary Bessent has talked about -- a lot about what we've done with Japan.

I talked with Prime Minister Modi about this, and, of course, we announced that we have come to the terms of reference. So, we're making progress across the board.

It's -- it's a little bit too early to prejudge, to say what any of these deals is going to look like.

But I think the fundamental thing that the president has said is, look, global trade has become fundamentally imbalanced. The American taxpayer and the American nation has become the piggy bank for the entire world. We absorb the world's producer surplus, but that's bad for American workers, it's bad for American exporters, and it's something the president ran on stopping. And I think that he's making great progress to stopping it early on in this second term.

Q: Kilmar Abrego Garcia's wife has been very vocal about how she doesn't think he's getting due process, and she now also fears for her safety. Do you have a message to her specifically?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I -- I don't have a message to his wife. I mean, look, I just disagree with the idea that he hasn't been offered due process. He had a couple of immigration hearings. He had a valid deportation order. I -- I think this idea that somehow that we couldn't deport an MS-13 gang member -- and he was an MS-13 gang member -- is preposterous.

And I think there's actually a deeper issue going on, which is that you see some radical judges at the district court level who are trying to layer so much -- quote, unquote -- process on top of the immigration system that it makes it impossible to function.

We have over 20 million illegal aliens in the United States of America. Are we not allowed to deport them? Because if we're not allowed to deport them, then what these district courts are saying is, fundamentally, they reject the will of the American people as it was expressed in November of 2024.

We just reject that. I believe the American people elected President Trump to do many jobs, but perhaps the most important job was to bring down the number of illegal immigration in this country. That's what he trying to do. We're going to keep on doing it.

Q: Can you talk about the trip just broadly? Obviously, it was very personal for you. You're Catholic; your wife is Hindu. Is that something that you have thought about over the past couple days -- is just Americans and, frankly, the world learning more about you and your family?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: You know, it's really been an amazing and a special trip. And, you know, I say this all the time, but I'm very grateful to the American people for giving me this job. But I -- I don't know that I felt more grateful than in the last week. To be able to go to Good Friday services at the Vatican -- really, the capital of the Catholic Church in the world -- to be able to spend Easter Sunday at -- right? I mean, we were steps away from the tomb of Saint Paul, one of the great evangelists in the history of Christianity.

And then to come here to India, the birthplace of my wife's parents, and get to experience this beautiful country, the culture, the food, which my kids have become really obsessed with. You know, my son said, "Indian food in America is good. Indian food in India is really, really good."

And so, we've had just a great time, a great trip. I think we've done a lot of good for the American people. We've done the people's business, but it's been incredibly personally enriching and rewarding. And we've had a good time too.

Q: I have another question about back home.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

Q: As the federal government is determining pulling funding from some of these universities that they think are not deserving of that federal funding, do you think that there's any safeguard that should be in place to make sure the government doesn't get in the business of stopping intellectual freedom?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I think the most important safeguard to any of this is just the law.

And if you look at Harvard, of course, that's been the university that's been most in the public eye. I mean, look, Harvard to every reasonable interpretation, I think, has violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by engaging in explicit racial discrimination, to say nothing else of Harvard's many other sins.

If you're violating the law as a university, you shouldn't receive taxpayer money. I don't know why it's more controversial than that.

I know you had one question.

Q: Oh, thank you. There -- Democrats are saying that Secretary Rubio's plan to reorganize the State Department is going to put the future of American foreign policy and diplomacy in jeopardy. Since you're on a foreign trip right now, what's your response to that?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I'm not surprised that Democrats think that Republicans are doing something and that -- that it's bad. That seems to be the entire narrative of the Democratic Party. They have no ideas for how to alternatively govern this country.

And I -- I guess, if they think that the foreign policy of the last Democratic administration was such a success -- we had war in Europe. We had war in the Middle East. We had hot spots breaking out all over the world, and we had a growing trade imbalance, which was making Americans poorer and less -- worse off.

I -- I think that departing from the Democrats' foreign policy is exactly what we were elected to do.

And I think Secretary Rubio -- look, it's a very commonsense idea, which is some of these institutions become so sclerotic, they do sa- -- things the same way again and again and again. And he's coming into a department saying, "Yeah, it's got a lot of good people, but it's also got some institutional bureaucracy that needs to be fixed up." I think that's a reasonable thing to do, and I think the secretary is exactly the person to do it.

Q: You said that you were optimistic the other day, when you're meeting with Meloni, about ending the brutal Ukraine-Russia war.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

Q: At this point, based on where negotiations are, when -- what do you think is next in that process? And do you think that the U.S. should still hang on and -- and take part in those negotiations?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I'm going to echo something Secretary Rubio said, which is, look, we've issued a very explicit proposal to both the Russians and the Ukrainians, and it's time for them to either say yes or for the United States to walk away from this process. We have engaged in an extraordinary amount of diplomacy, of on-the-ground work. We've really tried to understand things from the perspective of both the Ukrainians and the Russians. What do Ukrainians care the most about? What do the Russians care the most about? And I think that we've put together a very fair proposal.

We're going to see if the Europeans, the Russians, and the Ukrainians are ultimately able to get this thing over the finish line.

Again, I feel pretty optimistic about it. I think everybody has been negotiating in good faith, but it's now time, I think, to take, if not the final step, one of the final steps, which is, at a broad level, the parties saying, "We're going to stop the killing, we're going to freeze the territorial lines at some level close to where they are today, and we're going to actually put in place the kind of long-term diplomatic settlement that hopefully will lead to long-term peace."

I'm going to take one more question before the kids start banging on the airplane windows.

Q: Would -- would -- oh, go ahead.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Go ahead.

Q: So, just to clarify. So, you want the current lines of war in the war in Ukraine to remain the same under your proposal?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, no, I didn't say that. What I said is the current lines, somewhere close to them, is where you're ultimately, I think, going to draw the new lines in the conflict.

Now, of course, that means the Ukrainians and the Russians are both going to have to give up some of the territory they currently own. There's going to have to be some territorial swaps. So, I wouldn't say the exact lines.

But we want the killing to stop, and the only way to really stop the killing is for the armies to both put down their weapons, to freeze this thing, and to get on with the business of actually building a better Russia and a better Ukraine.

We're certainly invested in that effort. We hope the Russians and the Ukrainians will meet us halfway.

Thank you, guys. See ya.

Q: Thank you, Mr. Vice President.