Pool Reports of February 26, 2025

Pool report 1 - KL gaggle

Good morning! Karoline Leavitt gaggled with the press for about 4 minutes this morning after a media hit, from about 8:31 to 8:35am.

She was asked about Elon Musk attending the cabinet meeting today:
"Elon is working with the cabinet secretaries and their staffs everyday to identify waste, fraud and abuse at these respective agencies."

And she pointed to actions already taken by SBA Kelly Loeffler on return to office and EPA Lee Zeldin on $20 billion allocated by the Biden admin in its last weeks under review.

About the DOGE administrator:
Karoline said that she has always been the DOGE administrator and did not know why DOGE staff didn't know that.

"You are hounds in the media who are so obsessed with this for some reason. So in the effort of transparency, we told you who that person is."

And on Ukraine minerals deal: 
She said she will check with NSC about the status of the rare earth minerals deal but in her last conversation with them last night the deal was "close."

Please check quotes against otter: https://otter.ai/u/GocLZVnb6JBpEqV1KCTxfY8FQh0?utm_source=copy_url

Pool report 2

The pool is gathering in the briefing room ahead of the Cabinet (plus Elon Musk) meeting.

Pool report 3

The pool is moving to the meeting at 11:07am. 

The event is being carried live (on ABC and others) so I will just share newsy updates.

Pool report 4 - in the cabinet room

The pool entered the cabinet meeting room at 11:42am. 

President Trump began his remarks at 11:42. 

He is flanked by Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth and Sec. of State Marco Rubio. 

First announcement is Zelenskyy will be coming to the White House on Friday.

Pool report 5

In the room with the president:

Full cabinet, including the unconfirmed nominees. 

Senior WH staff, including Susie Wiles and Stephen Miller

Elon Musk is in a seat on the far left side of the room in a second row of chairs, not at the cabinet table. He’s wearing the dark MAGA hat.

Pool report 6

Trump remarks:

On DOGE
"Whether it's this year of next year I think we'll be very close to balancing budgets"

"I can tell you everything I've done for the last—long period of time" (on 5 bullets email)

"We have a mandate to do this. And this part of the reason I got elected."

Elon begins remarks at 11:51

"I call myself humble tech support here," revealing a Black t shirt that said "tech support."

"The overall goal here with the DOGE team is to help address the enormous deficits."

"If we don't do this America will go bankrupt. That's why it has to be done."

"We can actually find a trillion dollars in savings… obviously that can only be done with the support of everyone in this room."

"We will make mistakes. We won't be perfect. But where we do make mistakes we'll fix them very quickly."

Pool report 7

Trump and Musk now taking questions, starting at 11:55am

Musk asked if the cabinet is happy with him, Trump interrupts and asks:
"Is anyone unhappy with Elon? If you are, we'll throw them out of here"
The cabinet gives a round of applause for Musk. 

Musk calls the 5 bullets email not a performance review, but a pulse check review. 
"There are fictional individuals collecting paychecks."
"Are they alive and can they right an email?"

Trump add on to DOGE email:
"Those millions of people who haven't responded they're on the bubble… I wouldn't say they wouldn't exist"
"Maybe they're going to be gone"

Pool report 8

Trump continues answering questions…

Trump on DOGE:
"We're cutting down government. We're cutting down the size of government. We're bloated. We're sloppy."
Then points to social security and said "They're 200 years old" cashing checks 

Trump on border:
"We took over a mess"

"We want people to come into our country by the way but they have come legally"

Trump on gold visa ($5 mil investment for a green card)
Companies can buy gold cards and in exchange get those visas to hire new employees

Howard Lutnick on gold visa:
"The EB5 program which has been around for many years for investment in projects … it was poorly overseen poorly executed. Then you had our border open where millions of people came through
"If we sell 200,000 of these gold green cards is $1 tril to pay down our debt and that's why the presidents doing it 

Trump on gold visa:
"That's a path to citizenship. 

"People don't want to go to other countries. They want to come here. 

Trump on Ukraine deal:
"I'm not going to make security guarantees"

"We very much need rare earth … we need a lot more to lead in every way … we need resources to double our electric capacity."

"The deal we're making give us great wealth and we want to be able to settle this up."

"We're taking what we're entitled to take." 

Trump on cost of eggs:
"Confidence in our nation including right track wrong track… confidence in business, confidence in government has never been higher"

Trump on China taking Taiwan 
"I never comment on that"
"I don't want to put myself in that position"

"We're going to have a good relationship with China but they won't be able to take advantage of us… we're going to have a good relationship with China, with Russia, Ukraine and the Middle East."

Trump on Tariffs:
"The damage has been done" (by fentanyl)

"On April second the tariffs go on"

Hegseth on investigating Afghanistan withdrawal:
"We plan to have full accountable"

Trump on investigating Afghanistan withdrawal:
"I think they're going to be gone"

Pool report 9

Trump continues answering questions…

Trump on cutting social security/medicare:
"I have said it so many times you shouldn't ask me that question… we're not going to touch. We're going to look for fraud."

Trump on executive power and giving orders to cabinet members: 
"They'll follow the orders. No exceptions."

Howard Lutnick on tariff pause:
For Fentayl related tariffs, "at the end of 30 days they have and satisfy him" that they've made progress.

Trump immediately adds:
"I'm going to be hard to convince."

"Without us Canada can't make it."
"The tariffs will make it impossible for them to sell cars. It will make it impossible for them to sell lumber. 

Trump on EU tariffs:
"We have made a decision and we'll be announcing it very soon. It'll be 25 percent. … they've taken advantage of us in a different way."

"The European Union was formed to screw the United States."

Trump on CBS 60minutes case:
"CBS did something amazing. Kamala was not able to answer a question probably and they took the question and inserted an answer… nobody has ever heard of anything like this before."

"We are in discussion of settlement."

"It probably did affect the election."

Trump then adds he wants paper ballets and less early voting. 

-COS Susie Wiles has left her seat at the table. Your pooler did not see exactly when she got up.

Pool report 10

Trump continues…

Trump in Putin:
"He will" have to make concessions. 

"The Ukraines are good fighter so have to say it without our equipment… it would be over very quickly."

Follow up on what concession?
"NATO you can forget about."

JD Vance on concession:
"We're not going to do the negotiations in public with the American media. We're going to do them in private." 
"He (Trump) hasn't conceded anything."

RFK Jr. on measles outbreak in Texas:
"We're told in the Mennonite community there are two people who have died."

"We're watching it. We put out a post on it yesterday"

Trump on peacekeepers in Ukraine:
"Peacekeeping is very easy, it's making the deal that's very tough."

"Let me make peace first."

Trump on sanctions on Russia:
Not on table to take them off now 

JD Vance jokes after several Russia questions:
"They want you to negotiate with them rather than Presidnet Putin"

Pool report 11

Trump thanks the press pool and we're ushered out at 12:47pm after about 65 minutes.

Also in the room (h/t Chris Bedford from Blaze Media):
Dan Scovino
Sergio Gor
Peter Navarro 
Jacob Reese

Bedford also noticed Wiles had left at about 12:34pm.

Pool report 12

Here's an otter from the cabinet room meeting: https://otter.ai/u/UIgWPFCeBwCC8C4VL1W5Awbl5_E?utm_source=copy_url

Pool report 13

Some Cabinet members are scheduled to do local media hits in the Rose Garden.

There is a possibility that others may stop at the sticks.

Pool report 14

The White House called a travel/photo lid at 6pm