Pool Reports of March 30, 2025

out of town note 1/ POTUS departs Mar-a-Lago

Greetings from Palm Beach, Florida, on a cloudy day with a temperature of 75F. POTUS's motorcade departed Mar-a-Lago at 8.53am.

Earlier an AP reporter and photographer gathered with the rest of the media at call time but were denied access to the press vans, as is now regularly the case.

out of town note 2/ POTUS arrives at golf course

POTUS's motorcade entered the Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach at 8.59am. A group of supporters were gathered opposite the entrance with Trump and US flags and signs. One sign said: 'Thank you and Elon.'

Pool is now holding nearby inside the Palm Beach County Library.

out of town note 3/ Departs golf club

POTUS's motorcade departed the Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach at 2.31pm.

A group of Trump supporters were gathered opposite the entrance with Trump flags, US flags, camera phones and a black umbrella.

out of town note 4/ Back at Mar-a-Lago

POTUS's motorcade reached Mar-a-Lago at 2.38pm after a rainy but uneventful journey. Press vans are holding in the parking lot.

out of town note 5/ Departs Mar-a-Lago

POTUS's motorcade departed Mar-a-Lago at 5.19pm.

out of town note 6/ Aboard AF1

The motorcade reached Palm Beach airport at 5.28pm. POTUS stepped out of a black limousine and boarded Air Force One without taking questions a minute later.

People had stood and watched the motorcade pass. Some held Trump signs or flags. A big banner proclaimed: 'Hillary for Prison.' One man pointed to a red t-shirt that said: 'Rigged 2020.' Elsewhere someone waved a Canadian flag.

out of town note 7/ POTUS comments on a third term

Air Force One took off from Palm Beach airport at 5.40pm and landed at Joint Base Andrews at 7.41pm.

POTUS came to the press cabin just after 7pm and took questions for about 11 minutes on tariffs, Ukraine and whether he might seek a third term as president.

First, here's what he said on the third term issue:
Q: You said you were not joking about possibly wanting a third term. Does that mean you're not planning to leave office on January 20?

POTUS: "I'm not looking at that but I'll tell you, I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which in a way is a fourth term because the other election, the 2020 election was totally rigged, so it's actually sort of a fourth term. I just don't want the credit for the second because Biden was so bad, he did such a bad job, and I think that's one of the reasons that I'm popular, if you want to know the truth.

"I think I'm popular because we've done a great job. I think we've had the best hundred days of almost any president. Most people are saying that and it's an honour, bringing back our country. We're respected as a country again. We're strongly respected and people are amazed.

"I was with some very important people today and they said they've never seen a turnaround of a country as fast as this. Even look at our border. We have nobody coming in and you can't come into our country; you have to come in legally. We have nobody coming into our country. It's almost shut down."

Q: The constitution limits a president to two terms –

POTUS: "I don't even want to talk about it. I'm just telling you I have had more people saying, please run again. We have a long way to go before we even think about that but I've had a lot of people."

Q: Do you think that's an appropriate precedent to set, even if it's not you in that position?

POTUS: "I don't even want to talk about a third term now because no matter how you look at it, you've got a long time to go. We have a long time. We have almost four years to go and that's a long time but despite that so many people are saying you've got to run again. They love the job we're doing. Most importantly they love the job we're doing."

More to come.

out of town note 8/ POTUS boards Marine One

Wearing dark suit and red tie, POTUS descended the stairs of Air Force One at 7.53pm and did not take further questions.

He walked across the tarmac at JBA and boarded Marine One at 7.54pm. Marine One lifted off at 7.59pm.

More quotations from the AF1 gaggle to come.

out of town note 9/ POTUS comments on Putin and Zelenskyy

Here are other highlights from POTUS's gaggle on Air Force One, reordered by subject for clarity. Thanks to Haley Bull of Scripps News for help with transcription.
POTUS began: "We had a good time this weekend. We had a lot of very interesting things happen and I think we're making a lot of progress on Ukraine and Russia. There's always conflict but I think we're making a lot of progress getting it stopped... It's step by step. There's tremendous hatred between the leaders - if you call the whole situation leaders - but I think we'll get that done.

"And the MIddle East, a lot of things are happening with respect to Iran. And we'll see if we can get something done. And if not, it's going to be a bad situation. Very, very bad."

Ukraine

Q: Would you say your relationship with Vladimir Putin is at its lowest point right now?

POTUS: "No, I don't think so, I don't think he's going to go back on his word. You're talking about Putin. I don't think he's going to go back on his word. I've known him for a long time. We've always gotten along well, despite the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. It's a hoax created by Clinton and Schiff and all of these lunatics. And that really was a dangerous point. That was a very dangerous thing they did to this country. It was a pure, unadulterated scam. Hoax.

"But no, I think he'll be OK. But if he isn't - I was disappointed in a certain way. Some of the things that he said over the last day or two having to do with Zelenskyy because when he considers Zelenskyy not credible - he's supposed to be making a deal with him, whether you like him or you don't like him. So I wasn't happy with that. But I think he's going to be good and I certainly wouldn't want to put secondary tariffs on Russia but, if they were put on, it would not be very good for them.

"We put secondary tariffs on, as you know, on Venezuela and it's had a very strong impact on Venezuela. You know that every ship just got out and they left. A lot of them left. They dropped the hoses right into the ocean and they left. They don't want to be there for a minute because they didn't want those tariffs to catch on, or they didn't want me to see them there. So the Venezuelan secondary tariffs, all secondary tariffs are very strong because essentially it says if you disobey our orders, you cannot do business in the United States of America. And that's the cash cow."

Q: Is there a deadline for Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire?

POTUS: "It's a psychological deadline. If I think they're tapping us along, I will not be happy about it."

Q: Do you think they are right now?

POTUS: "I don't know, I don't know, I don't think so. I think he wants to make a deal. And I think Zelinskyy, by the way, I see he's trying to back out of the rare earth deal. And if he does that he's got some problems. Big, big problems. We made a deal on rare earth and now he's saying, well, you know, I want to renegotiate the deal. He wants to be a member of NATO. Well, he was never going to be a member of NATO. He understands that. So if he's looking to renegotiate the deal, he's got big problems."

Iran

Q: When will additional sanctions start?

POTUS: "So we have a couple. We have the secondary tariffs on Iran and we'll probably give it a couple of weeks and if we don't see any progress we're going to put them on. We're not putting them on right now. But do you remember I did that six years ago and it worked very well, to put it mildly, and if the election weren't rigged, you'd have a situation where there would be no problem with Iran today.

"But it was. Biden didn't know what he was doing, obviously, and we have a very rough situation in the Middle East because of that. You ended up with October 7th and you would have never had October 7th and you would have never had Russia going into Ukraine likewise.

"But we're going to make a decision on secondary tariffs on Iran based on whether or not they're going to make a deal. If they're going to make a deal then we're never going to put secondary tariffs on; we're going to hope they have a great, long and successful life as a country.

"But we'll see what happens. Very, very interesting. I can't imagine them doing anything else but making a deal. I would prefer a deal to the other alternative, which I think everybody in this plane knows what that is, and that's not going to be pretty. And I do not prefer that."

Upcoming tariffs

Q: Are you weighing higher tariffs on Tuesday?

POTUS: "No, the tariffs will be far more generous than those countries were to us, meaning they will be kinder than those countries were to the United States of America over the decades. They ripped us off like no country has ever been ripped off in history and we're going to be much nicer than they were to us. But it's substantial money for the country nevertheless."

Q: How many countries will be hit by tariffs?

POTUS: "Essentially all of the countries that we're talking about, yeah. We'd be talking about all countries that - not a cut off. And if you look at the history and you look at what's happened to us, you go to certain places, go to Asia, and you take a look at every single country in Asia, what they've done to the United States in trade. And by the way, in military, in a certain way, you look at that. You could take a look at trade with Asia and I wouldn't say anybody has treated us fairly or nicely. But we are going to treat them. We're going to be much more generous to them in terms of heart. We're going to be much more generous than they were to us."

TikTok

Q: On TikTok?

POTUS: "Well, we're working on TikTok. We have a lot of potential buyers. There's tremendous interest in TikTok. The decision is going to be my decision, as you know, through Congress, and they've given me the power to make the decision, and we have a great team of people essentially taking bids. We have a lot of people that want to buy TikTok.

"We're dealing with China also on it, because they may have something to do with it. And we'll see how that goes. But it's something I think you're going to have - I'd like to see TikTok remain alive.

"I mean, I'll be honest, selfishly speaking, I won the young vote by 36 points. Republicans generally don't do very well with the young crowd, and I think a lot of it could have been TikTok, it could have been Joe Rogan, and it could have been a lot of things. But it was also TikTok. TikTok is very interesting and a lot of people want to buy it. There'll be a deal with TikTok."

Car manufacturers

Q: Have you had any more outreach from the automakers and are you reconsidering that at all?

POTUS: "No, no. The automakers are going to make a lot of money. The American automakers or international automakers, if you're talking about they're going to build in the United States. The people that are going to make money are people that manufacture cars in the United States. Outside of the United States that's going to be up to them. I don't care too much about that. But you have a lot of companies coming into the country to manufacture cars.

"As you know, the auto workers union, I did great. I won Michigan by a lot. But the auto workers union, they were fantastic to me. But now they're really fantastic. And even Shawn Fain, who I don't know, but he obviously wasn't a supporter of mine, he's a Democrat. He said wonderful things about Donald Trump. He said, I can't believe this is finally happening.

"People that manufacture automobiles in the United States are going to make money the likes of which they've never seen before. But beyond that, we have the computer companies, the chip companies, the pharmaceutical companies. We have lumber, we have everything, steel. They're all going to do really well as long as they do their product in the United States. Thank you very much.

Economy

Q: Are you worried about the impact of stagflation given your efforts to readjust the economy?

POTUS: "I haven't heard that term in years. No, I don't know anything about it. This country is going to be more successful than it ever was. It's going to boom. You're going to have Boomtown USA. We're gonna boom, and many industries, and we're going to bring manufacturing and we're going to bring product.

"For instance, we need pharmaceuticals that are coming. We don't want to be buying our pharmaceuticals from other countries because if we're in a war we're in a problem. We want to be able to make our own. We have our own lumber. We have our own energy. We don't need energy from Canada. We don't need lumber from Canada. We don't need anything from Canada. We don't need cars from Canada as an example. So I think we're going to have what I call it the golden age of America. I believe this will be the golden age of America. Thank you very much."

WH in-town pool report #1 – Gathering

Good evening. Your pool has gathered for the president's arrival.

WH in-town pool report #2 — Arrival and lid

Marine One landed at the South Lawn at 8:08 pm ET. POTUS emerged moments later, and entered the White House without taking shouted questions from your pool.

The White House gave a travel/photo lid at 8:12 pm ET. Have a good night.