Pool Reports of March 31, 2025

in-town pool #1

Good morning from the White House on the final day of March and Day 70 of the administration.

The president currently has one open press event on his schedule: EO signings at 5:30 PM EST.

in-town pool #2

The White House has called a lunch lid until noon.

in-town pool #3: Leavitt gaggle

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt gaggled with reporters for about 8 minutes following a Fox News hit.

She said the president's tariff rollout, billed "Liberation Day," on Wednesday would be the administration's 1st Rose Garden event with the full Cabinet in attendance.

Answering a follow-up question on tariffs, she said there would be "no exemptions at this time."

On National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and the state of the investigation into how Jeffrey Goldberg's Signal number got into an administration chat, Leavitt said: "Mike Waltz continues to be an important part of his national security team and this case has been closed here at the White House."

Leavitt also fielded questions on criteria used to deport alleged gang members, Trump's float of a third term and prospects of a peace deal in Ukraine.

Fuller quotes to come.

in-town pool #4: Leavitt quotes on tariffs

ON WEDNESDAY'S LIBERATION DAY ROSE GARDEN TARIFF EVENT:
"The president will be announcing a tariff plan that will roll back the unfair trade practices that have been ripping off this country for decades. He's doing this in the best interest of the American worker."

ON THE DEPORTATION OF 17 ALLEGED TdA/MS-13 TERRORISTS TO EL SALVADOR:
"These are convicted felons, murderers, rapists who are no longer in our country and I think we should all be very grateful for that."

ANYTHING COUNTRIES CAN DO TO STAVE OFF TARIFFS?
"These countries have been ripping off our country for far too long, and they've made, I think they're disdain for the American worker, quite clear. If you look at the unfair trade practices that we have: 50% from the European Union on American dairy, you have a 700% tariff from Japan on American rice. You have a 100% tariff from India on American agricultural products. You have nearly a 300% tariff from Canada on American butter and American cheese. This makes it virtually impossible for American products to be imported into these markets and it has put a lot of Americans out of business and out of work over the past several decades. So it's time for reciprocity and it's time for a president to take historic change."

Leavitt name-checked Secretary Bessent, Secretary Lutnick, Jamieson Greer, Peter Navarro, Kevin Hassett, Stephen Miller as contributing plans to the president to help formulate the tariff policy.

in-town pool #5: Leavitt on Waltz + deportation criteria + 3rd term

ON STOCK MARKET CONCERN?
"The president has always said that the stock market is a snapshot in a moment in time ... and Wall Street will work out just fine."

COUNTRY BASED TARIFFS WEDNESDAY/SECTOR TARIFFS TBD:
"The goal of Wednesday is country based tariffs but certainly sectoral tariffs, the president has said he's committed to implementing them, and I'll leave it to him on when he makes that decision."

ON SIGNAL/WALTZ:
"There have been steps taken to ensure that something like that can obviously never happen again moving forward and the president and Mike Waltz and his entire national security team have been working together very well, if you look at how much safer the United States of America is because of the leadership of this team."

ON CRITERIA TO BE CLASSIFIED AS A MEMBER OF TREN DE ARAGUA AND TATTOOS BEING ENOUGH TO BE SENT TO EL SALVADOR:
"That's not true actually. No, according to the Department of Homeland Security and the agents. Have you talked to the agents who have been putting their lives on the line to detain these foreign terrorists who have been terrorizing our communities? ... There is a litany of criteria that they use to ensure that these individuals qualify as foreign terrorists and to ensure that they qualify for deportation. And the president made it incredibly clear to the American public that there would be a mass deportation campaign of not just foreign terrorists, but also illegal criminal aliens who have been wreaking havoc on American communities. And shame on you and shame on the mainstream media for trying to cover for these individuals ... This is a vicious gang."

ON COURT DOCUMENT ON CRITERIA FOR GANG DESIGNATION/DEPORTATION: "You are questioning the credibility of these agents who are putting their life on the line to protect your life and the life of everybody in this group?And their credibility should be questioned? They finally have a president who is allowing them to do their jobs and God Bless them for doing it."

MECHANISM FOR THIRD TRUMP TERM?
"Look you guys continue to ask the president this question about a third term and then he answers honestly and candidly with a smile and then everybody here melts down about his answer. The president talked about this last night on the plane. He said, it's not really something we're thinking about. He has four years, there's a lot of work to do. We've done a lot, nearly for 100 days. And the American people love what this president is doing."

PEACE DEAL POSSIBILITY IN UKRAINE? "He has expressed his displeasure with comments that have been made by leaders of both sides of this conflict. He has expressed what he believes needs to take place in order to see this conflict come to an end."

Leavitt said pool would hear directly from POTUS in the Oval Office at 5:30 EST during the signing of executive orders.

in-town pool #6

Pool has entered the Oval Office at 5:54 for the POTUS executive order signings

In-town pool #7: in the Oval

Flanked by rock star Kid Rock, President Trump is about to sign an executive order targeting ticket scalping.

The order directs the Federal Trade Commission to work with the attorney general to ensure competitive laws are enforced.

"I want the fans to have fair ticket prices," said Kid Rock, who referred to bad actors who exponentially hike the prices of ticket prices. "There's plenty of money to go around. Nobody's going to lose here."

in-town pool #8

Trump floated David Friedman and Ric Grenell as potential replacements for ambassador to the United Nations, after Rep. Elise Stefanik's withdrawal.

He also said he's going to Qatar and U.A.E., in addition to Saudi Arabia next month.

We just wrapped in the Oval. More coming.

in-town pool #9: Otter + lid

The White House called a travel/photo lid at 6:44 PM.

Here's the full audio of the president taking questions in the Oval Office.

https://otter.ai/u/VBNqtnfdXCpEef6XRQVqST20-NA?utm_source=copy_url

Highlights to come.

in-town pool #10: Trump quotes/ Q& A highlights

POTUS Oval Office comments and Q & A lasted about 36 minutes. Here are highlights on a wide range of topics >

ABOUT POTENTIALLY RUNNING AGAINST OBAMA IF BOTH ALLOWED TO SEEK A THIRD TERM:

"That would be good, wouldn't it? I'd like that ... People are asking me to run, there's a whole story about running for a third term. I don't know, I've never looked into. They do say there's a way you can do it, but I don't know about that.

ON NEW INVESTMENT DUE TO TARIFFS:

"Chip companies from Taiwan are coming in the biggest, Mr. Wayne. He's big. I think you are a smart guy, aren't you? I've been reading about him over the years, but he controls a large portion of the chip business as you know ... They're going to be investing two or $300 billion Apple is investing $500 billion They always built their places in China that, now he's building building here ... Because of the election, but maybe more importantly, because of the tariffs ... But we have many, many companies that you haven't even heard of, but I think we'll be at $5 trillion very soon ... I think we're going to be at $5 trillion of investment ...We're already three and a half, and we have commitments, vertical commitments, for a lot more."

MORE ON TARIFF INCENTIVES, TAX DEDUCTION:

"Remember, there are no tariffs if you do your product here, if you build whatever it is in the USA. One of the things we're also trying to get is, if you build, if you buy a car that was built in the USA, you get a deduction on interest. So you borrow money to buy a car if it's built in the USA. Never been done before. It's a big deduction for people that really aren't used to deductions."

ON TARIFFS ON AUTO PARTS:

"If you look at Canada and Mexico, they were driving hundreds of 1000s of cars into the market because they avoid the tariffs by doing it before the tariffs go on, which would be Wednesday. And I looked at, I saw some of your shows where cars are lined up for miles and miles. Some of them didn't have fenders on them. Some of them didn't have the roof on yet. They're driving it here brand new. They're driving it in because they want to avoid the tariffs. I let them have that. They sort of took advantage of it because, you know, that was a part of the deal, but that's okay. They're great American car companies and car companies, and so I gave them a little break.

ON PUTIN FRUSTRATION & SECONDARY TARIFFS:

"They're losing at least 2500 human beings, beautiful human beings a week. And I wanted to stop and some people, some people would say, Why do you worry about Russian soldiers and Ukrainian soldiers, they weren't because it's like that, just like you people, they're like us, there's like all of us ...
I don't want to go secondary tariffs on his oil, but I think, you know, it's something I would do if I thought he wasn't doing the job. I did it with Venezuela secondary tariffs. And you know what happened? Every boat left the harbor."

ON WISCONSIN SUPREME COURT RACE:

"The woman is a radical left lunatic, and let's see who wins, but the woman will be very bad. And you know, Wisconsin is a big state politically, and the Supreme Court has a lot to do with elections in Wisconsin. So if whoever it is that's running, including even Senate races, etc, but whoever it is in four years. Having Wisconsin is very big."

ON POTENTIAL TIKTOK SALE:
"But we have a lot of enthusiasm for Tiktok, for buying it. I think Tiktok is good. I've used, I was a great Tiktok guy, and we won by 36 points, the youth. You know, we won the youth, which Republicans don't do. Maybe it's because Kid Rock likes Trump."

ON TIGER WOODS DATING VANESSA TRUMP:

"I happen to think the relationship with my son, I think I happen to think the relationship was hurt very badly by the witch hunt that went on Russia, Russia, Russia and all the crap ... But Vanessa and Don had a very good relationship. They have incredible children, five -- incredible children, all good athletes, all great students. And they broke up, you know, quite a while ago, and which was to me very sad, because I think they're both great. Tiger actually called me a few months ago, and they have a very special, very good relationship with Tiger. I played golf with him a couple of times over the last month, and he's a fantastic guy, a fantastic athlete, and he told me about it, and I said, Tiger, that's good. I'm very happy for both. Let them both be happy. They're both great."

ON LE PEN CONVICTION/BAN FROM RUNNING: "That's a big deal. That's a very big deal. I know about it, and a lot of people thought she wasn't going to be convicted of anything. And I don't know if it means conviction but she was banned from running for five years, and she's the leading candidate. That sounds like this country. It sounds very much like this country."

ON STATUS OF AUSTIN TICE:
"There's been virtually no sign, you know that. be less young. There's no sign of Austin, incredible young guy. Now it's been a long time. It's been many, many years. The mother is fantastic. She's a very committed mother that her whole life was to find her son. He was in Syria and just disappeared off the face of the earth. So, you know, a lot of bad things happen, but we'll always, you know, we'll never, we will never, until we find out something definitive, one way or the other, we'll never stop looking for but we have been and the response, just a lot of dead ends."

ON U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N.REPLACEMENTS:
"And I can tell you that for the replacement, we have a lot of people that have asked about it, and would like to do it. David Friedman, Ric Grenell, and maybe 30 other people. Everyone loves that position. That's a star making position."

ON MOST RECENT DEPORTATIONS TO EL SALVADOR: "I got elected on the basis of getting bad people out of our country that shouldn't be here ... And that's what I did. And then you have a judge that wants to take over. I can't imagine it could be allowed. If it was up to him, they'd all be back in our country."

ON ELON MUSK STAYING LONGER THAN 130 DAYS: "At some point he's going to be going back ... I'll keep him as long as I can keep him, he's a very talented guy. I love very smart people and he's very smart and he's done a good job ... I like high IQ people. At some point Elon's going to want to go back to his company."

ON DOGE AFTER ELON: "There will be a point at which the secretaries will be able to do this work and do it as we say, with a scalpel."

ON MISSING U.S. SOLDIERS IN LITHUANIA: "Three are no longer with us and one is unfortunately probably in the same category but they haven't declared that yet."

ON SAUDI ARABIA TRIP: "So I have a very good relationship with the Middle East. If you look at Michigan, I won the vote by a lot. People a little surprised ...
And you remember last time I went to Saudi Arabia .... they agreed to buy 450 billion plus worth of American goods, military, and otherwise, and they did ... They've agreed to spend close to $1 trillion in American companies ... And for that I think it's worth it."

QATAR/U.A.E.: "We're going to Qatar and also we're going to possibly a couple of other countries. U.A.E. is very important ...So we'll probably stop at U.A.E. and Qatar."

Hit me with any questions/clarifications on quotes.