LIVE: White House Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt

Kash Patel, you all know him well. And he's here to provide an update for you all with respect to China. As you know, President Trump had a very successful meeting on his trip to Asia with President Xi, where they discussed the need for China to crack down on fentanyl production and distribution, which ultimately makes its way here to the United States of America. And the FBI director recently traveled to China following President Trump's meeting to meet with his counterpart in Beijing. And he has a really positive announcement for the American people to share. So the President wanted me to bring the FBI director out to share that with all of you today. So, Kash, please, thank you for being here. Thanks, Caroline. As Caroline mentioned, we have some tremendous news, thanks to President Donald J. Trump once again for the American people. As soon as the President of the United States took office, he issued a mandate to rid America of the scourge that is fentanyl, a drug that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. Thanks to his leadership and direct engagement with China, we set up a framework to execute that mission eight months ago. Attorney General Bondi immediately thereafter took steps to engage her counterpart in China at the Ministry of Public Security. Pursuant to their direct discussions, as the FBI director designated to run counterpoint on this, along with the Secretary of State Rubio and Ambassador Perdue and the team here at the White House, we set forward a path to implement the policy needed to crush the plague of fentanyl. Deputy Attorney General Blanch and our teams have been hard at work ever since, ultimately culminating in my trip to Beijing last week. This was only possible due to President Trump's historic engagement with President Xi just a few short weeks ago that set the stage for today's announcement. At that meeting, the leaders reached an agreement. But just to put this in frame for the American people, a reminder here that nearly 100,000 people died of fentanyl overdoses just last year alone. Here, this year, under this president, the FBI has seized 1,900 kilograms of fentanyl. So far, that is a 31% increase from the same time period last year. To put it in perspective, that's enough fentanyl to kill 127 million Americans. Fentanyl precursors are what makes up fentanyl. While we, the interagency, the Department of Justice, have been fighting hard to seize and stop drug traffickers, we must attack fentanyl precursors, the ingredients necessary to make this lethal drug. That was the sole purpose of my trip to China, to eliminate these precursors. And if successful, we would suffocate the drug trafficking organization's ability to manufacture fentanyl in places like Mexico. This was the first time an FBI director has been to China in over a decade and received the audience with his counterpart to address this matter directly. And again, thanks to President Trump's direct engagement with President Xi, the government of China committed fully to my engagement there on the ground in Beijing at a level never seen before. While at Ministry of Public Security headquarters, I met with my counterpart at MPS, where the Chinese government agreed on a plan to stop fentanyl precursors. What does that mean? The People's Republic of China has fully designated and listed all 13 precursors utilized to make fentanyl. Furthermore, they have agreed to control seven chemical subsidiaries that are also utilized to produce this lethal drug. Effective immediately, essentially, President Trump has shut off the pipeline that creates fentanyl that kills tens of thousands of Americans. These substances are now banned, and they will no longer be utilized by the Mexican drug trafficking organizations or any other DTOs around the world to make this drug. This historic achievement has saved tens of thousands of lives. This historic achievement would not have been possible without the tremendous team of President Trump, the Attorney General, the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Ambassador Perdue in China, whose ground-level engagements were imperative to achieving this result. This is yet another example of how President Trump defends the American people, provides security for the American people, and puts the American people first. This is a historic, first-of-its-kind achievement by any president to stop the scourge of fentanyl, and it should be championed by every single American. This achievement will save lives. We are thankful for President Trump's steadfast leadership, and this FBI will fearlessly follow in his footsteps to ensure that this mission of safeguarding the American public is achieved every single day. Thank you. Thanks, Caroline. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Okay. Thank you again, Director Patel. Before we get going, I do have one quick scheduling announcement. Tomorrow, President Trump will be joined by the First Lady in the East Room for an executive order signing aimed at expanding opportunities for education, career development, housing, and other resources for young people transitioning from foster care to adulthood. This is part of the First Lady's Fostering the Future efforts, which are a Be Best initiative. In other news, the Democrats dragged on the government shutdown for 43 days, the longest shutdown in U.S. history. But tonight, thanks to Republicans, the White House is very hopeful that this shutdown is going to come to an end. The damage caused by the Democrats with this reckless government shutdown cannot be forgotten. It is entirely the fault of the Democrat Party. Just look at the vote count. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees have missed their paychecks. Tens of billions in wages and benefits were withheld, impacting vulnerable families. Millions of low-income Americans missed their SNAP benefits. Nearly 20,000 flights at airports across the country were delayed due to staffing shortages, causing Americans to miss family events, vacations, and work obligations. According to Airlines for America, an estimated 5.2 million travelers have had their flights disrupted over the course of the Democrat shutdown. And our economy has lost billions and billions of dollars in economic activity over the course of this shutdown, hurting consumer sentiment and crushing the travel and hospitality industries. According to a CBO estimate, the Democrat shutdown could end up decreasing fourth-quarter economic growth by two whole percentage points. The Democrat shutdown made it extraordinarily difficult for economists, investors, and policy makers at the Federal Reserve to receive critical government data. The Democrats may have permanently damaged the federal statistical system, with October CPI and jobs reports likely never being released. And all of that economic data released will be permanently impaired, leaving our policy makers at the Fed flying blind at a critical period. It's hard to recap all of this without asking a simple question, why? Why have the Democrats put the American people through this pain for 43 days in a row? And it feels like Groundhog Day being up here again talking about this Democrat shutdown. And the answer to that question is pure partisan politics. They started this shutdown with a ridiculous demand to force taxpayer-funded health care benefits to illegal aliens who broke into our country. Even after it was clear President Trump and Republicans would never force American taxpayers to pay for free health care for illegals, in fact, President Trump's one big beautiful bill fixed that problem, the Democrats kept dragging this reckless government shutdown on for weeks longer to boost their turnout in an election, perhaps one may guess. That's because the Democrats are totally captured by their far left-wing base who only care about attacking President Trump even if it means hurting innocent Americans in our country. The Democrats' weakness and their unwillingness to buck the fringe members of their party dragged this harmful shutdown on for seven weeks and inflicted massive pain onto the American public. But let's be clear, the clean CR being voted on today in the House of Representatives that will lead to the reopening of the federal government is what President Trump and Republicans have supported from day one. Our troops, air traffic controllers, and federal employees will be back to receiving their regular paychecks, families in need will get back to receiving their food purchasing assistance, and the people's government will soon be back open for business. President Trump looks forward to finally ending this devastating Democrat shutdown with his signature and we hope that signing will take place later tonight. On another matter, I want to address the affordability issue that's received a great deal of media attention this past week, which is ironic because it didn't receive that much attention when Joe Biden was here and inflation was at a record high, 9%, the worst inflation crisis in modern American history. And President Trump won a landslide election in part to address the affordability issues created by Joe Biden and the Democrats. And that's exactly what President Trump has done since day one of his administration. Since the first day in office and every day since, the Trump administration has taken aggressive action to fix the Biden created cost of living issues. The notion that the same Democrats who just shut down the federal government to sabotage our economy, rob people of their paychecks, and also helped Joe Biden ratchet up inflation to 9% are now suddenly affordability champions. That notion is completely absurd and it's something only the liberal media would have the gall to push. But the reality is that President Trump and his administration have done so much to lower prices and increase the economic prosperity of the American people. And this president and his team of amazing economic advisors are going to keep working on this issue every single day. In less than 10 short months, President Trump signed the largest middle class tax cuts in American history, including no tax on tips, overtime and social security, which will guarantee that next year Americans are going to put more money back into their pockets. The president has completely unleashed American energy dominance to help bring gasoline prices to the lowest in five years, and we expect them to continue to decrease. And it has also lowered energy costs overall. There is more work to do, but again, the president's deregulatory and pro-American energy agenda is absolutely going to continue to drive down prices. This formula worked in the president's first term, and we expect that it's going to work again. And this is key because we know energy costs are the number one driver of inflation. Again, just look at what Joe Biden did to our energy industry over the past four years of his administration and look at what happened to inflation as a result. Everything became more expensive. To lower prescription drug prices and healthcare costs, the president has been working around the clock on this issue. He is obsessed with negotiating these good deals on behalf of the American people to bring down pharmaceutical costs and drug costs for Americans, and he has done so on a number of fronts. You have seen him discuss that in the Oval Office several times. To fuel small businesses, lower their costs and incentivize hiring, the Trump administration has already cut 30 unnecessary regulations for every new one on the books, which we know will save employers and small businesses across the country thousands of dollars in regulatory burdens. All of these pro-Trump policies are working and they will continue to work. Wages are rising at the fastest pace of the start of a presidential administration in 60 years. The cost of the typical new mortgage is down by nearly $3,000 per year. There's much work to do and this administration will continue to do it, but President Trump has already made great progress in cleaning up the economic disaster that was created by Joe Biden. With that, I will take your questions today and in our new media seat, we have Bev Turner who works for a new outlet, a UK outlet, but based here in Washington, D.C., GB News. Bev, thank you for being here today. Why don't you kick us off? Thank you, Caroline. So the clock is ticking on the Friday deadline by which the BBC must retract and apologise for their malicious edit of the President in the documentary show last year. The recently resigned Director General of the BBC yesterday described the organisation as the very best of society and blamed the enemies of the BBC for this outcome. Also yesterday, a senior government minister launched a fierce defence of the channel in the House of Commons, saying that the broadcaster remains a light on the hill for people all over the world. So does the President feel that the network is taking the situation seriously? Does he believe that they've shown sufficient regret? Does this strain the relationship between the President and the Prime Minister? And given that the organisation is publicly funded, is the President prepared to bankrupt the BBC in his pursuit of truth and justice? Well, thank you, Bev. There's a lot of questions in one there. I will say, I know the President has a very good relationship with Prime Minister Starmer. You have been there. You've seen them in their interactions. You've questioned both leaders in your time joining us when we've gone to the United Kingdom a few different times now. However, he has always been very frank when he disagrees with leaders, even whom he has a good relationship with. And the BBC, being a fair news organisation, is definitely an outlet I think these two leaders would disagree. The President has made it very clear that this is a leftist propaganda machine that is unfortunately subsidised by British taxpayers, and he thinks that's extremely unfortunate for the great people of the United Kingdom and Great Britain. And I think that the President was deeply concerned by the editing, the purposeful and dishonest editing of his speech that was so clearly fake news, and he rightfully dubbed that term many years ago, and this is a classic example of that. We see it in the United States all the time. We see it now in the United Kingdom. As you know, the President's external legal counsel has filed a lawsuit against the BBC. We expect that to continue, and whether they apologise or not is up to them. Thanks for being here, Bev. Weijia. Thank you, Caroline. Sure. I have your statement about the new Epstein emails that have been released by House Democrats. Separate from why you believe the emails were made public, can you address their substance? Did the President ever spend hours at Jeffrey Epstein's house with a victim? These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong. And what President Trump has always said is that he was from Palm Beach and so was Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein was a member at Mar-a-Lago until President Trump kicked him out because Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile and he was a creep. And this email you refer to with the name of a victim that was unredacted now and has since been reported on in this room, so I will go ahead and say it, Virginia Guffrey. And it was CBS's own reporting, Weijia, that recently wrote that Ms. Guffrey maintained, and God rest her soul, that she maintained that there was nothing inappropriate she ever witnessed, that President Trump was always extremely professional and friendly to her. And so I think it's a question worth asking the Democrat Party, and you should all go ask them after this briefing, of why they chose to redact that name of a victim who has already publicly made statements about her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and is unfortunately no longer with us. Mary. Thank you, Kelly. Two questions on this. In the interest of transparency, why not just go ahead, release the full files on Epstein, get this all over with? This administration has done more with respect to transparency when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein than any administration ever. In fact, this administration, the Department of Justice, has turned over tens of thousands of documents to the American people. We are cooperating and showing support for the House Oversight Committee. That's part of the reason you are seeing these documents that were released today, because of the House Oversight Committee's and Republicans' efforts to get these out to the public. This administration also moved, the Department of Justice also moved, to unseal grand jury testimony, which we know, unfortunately, a judge declined those requests. This administration has done more than any. It just shows how this is truly a manufactured hoax by the Democrat Party for, now they're talking about it all of a sudden, because President Trump is in the Oval Office, but when Joe Biden was sitting in there, the Democrats never brought this up. This wasn't an issue that they cared about, because they actually don't care about the victims in these cases. They care about trying to score political points against President Trump, as we have, of course, seen with this government shutdown. This entire thing, again, it's not a coincidence to the American people at home. There are no coincidences in Washington, D.C., and it is not a coincidence that the Democrats leaked these emails to the fake news this morning, ahead of Republicans reopening the government. This is another distraction campaign by the Democrat and the liberal media, and it's why I'm being asked questions about Epstein instead of the government reopening because of Republicans and President Trump. Reagan. But given your interest in transparency, Caroline, why are White House officials then meeting with Representative Boebert in an effort to try and get her to not sign this petition calling for the release of the files? Doesn't it show transparency that members of the Trump administration are willing to brief members of Congress whenever they please? Doesn't that show our level of transparency? Doesn't that show the level of transparency when we are willing to sit down with members of Congress and address their concerns? That's a defining factor of transparency, having discussions with members of Congress about various issues. I'm not going to detail conversations that took place in the situation room in the press briefing room. Reagan. I have a question about the government shutdown. Thank you. I'm glad someone does. First, on the government shutdown, the shutdown deal reverses the administration's rights I mean, look, I think it's about 6,000 workers total. When you look at that in comparison to the reduction in the federal workforce that this administration has done since January to get rid of the waste, the fraud, the abuse and to reduce the size of our federal bureaucracy, we've done a lot of great work on that front. And we will continue to. But obviously the president's main priority was to reopen the federal government and get people back to work. And that's what this deal accomplishes. There's been reports in Israeli media that the U.S. is considering building a temporary military base on the Gaza border. Can you confirm these reports? So I had a conversation directly with the reporter who wrote this article. And this article was based on a single piece of paper, an inquiry that somebody in the Department of Navy made about an idea that may happen in the future. And this reporter deemed that as an official plan and ran with a story that the United States is looking into it. I checked with the highest levels of the United States federal government. This is not something the United States is interested in being engaged in. It's not something we are currently involved in right now that we will be funding. And the president has been very clear, he doesn't want to see boots on the ground with respect to what's happening in the Middle East. We've made great peace. We've made great progress with the peace plan in Gaza and we want to continue to see that move forward. But I put a comment in that story for a reason. And sometimes we see reporters take a piece of paper like this and just deem it as official policy and sometimes that misleads people a little bit. Sure. There's been a question about UK intelligence sharing regarding the drunk interdictions involving potpourri. How will that affect the U.S. military operation? There's been a lot of discussion about the high caliber of the intelligence that has been provided before any of these military actions have taken place. I've seen that report. Oh, hello. I've seen that report. I'm familiar with the reporting, but we don't comment on intelligence matters, classified intelligence matters, as you know. As for the Trump administration's position on our narco-terrorist campaign in the Caribbean, it is going to continue. And the president has made it very clear he's not going to allow terrorists to bring illegal drugs that kill American citizens into our great country. Sure. John. I'll go to John and then Zolan. Go ahead. Thank you so much. Trump has talked about sending out $2,000 checks to U.S. citizens. Earlier this year, he also talked about sending a Doge dividend. That didn't materialize. Should U.S. citizens expect the $2,000 proposal? Is the White House committed to making that happen? The White House is committed to making that happen, yes. And we are currently exploring all legal options to get that done. I don't have a timeline for you or any further details, but I can confirm for you that the president made it clear he wants to make it happen. And so his team of economic advisors are looking into it. And when we have an update, we'll provide one. Zolan. You said at the top that one of the costs of the government shutdown was that people missed their SNAP benefits. Can you explain then why the administration went to court to fight the funding of food stamps and SNAP? So recipients missed their SNAP benefits because the Democrats shut the government down. And they forced the administration to tap into a contingency fund that did not even fund the full entirety of this program. And so then you had an unhinged judge who was trying to dictate from the bench what the executive branch has to pay for and where that money has to come from. That is judicial overreach at its finest. And so that's why the administration pushed back on that. We can't have the judicial branch telling the executive branch that we need to rob the Children Nutrition Fund, which is what this judge was trying to do, to pay for SNAP benefits. That's completely inappropriate and it's unconstitutional. And we've been proven right with that legal argument. But now the good news is, again, thanks to Republicans and in several hours, President Trump, the government is going to be reopened and SNAP recipients are going to receive their full benefits, which is what President Trump has always wanted to do. Stephen. Why also did you need the judicial process for that? I mean, during the shutdown, didn't the administration have a responsibility to tap into any of those reserves to ensure that essentially a poor people... We did. We did tap into it. We did tap into the contingency fund. And then the judge told us, no, you have to get more money from a Children's Nutrition Fund. And we felt that was judicial overreach. You shouldn't tell the president which fund he has to rob because the Democrats are holding the country hostage by shutting down the federal government. Stephen, go ahead. Can I just ask you as well, if the president is considering a pardon for Dwayne Maxwell? Again, he's answered this repeatedly. It's not something he's talking about or even thinking about at this moment in time, I can assure you of that. Stephen. Caroline, I've got two questions about New York for you. Sure. You always do. I ran for the New York Post. Well, Mayor-elect Mamdani, he said that he plans to reach out to President Trump and that, quote, this relationship, this is a relationship that would be critical. Does the White House have a response to this planned outreach? It's the first time I'm hearing of it. I'll let the president respond himself to that comment by Mr. Mamdani. My second question, Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of President Kennedy, announced today that he's running for Congress. He, in the recent past, has referred to his uncle, the HHS secretary, as, quote, a rabbit dog. And he has said that the Trump administration is, quote, the most corrupt in American history. Does the White House have a comment on this sort of comment from a rising star in the Democratic Party? I don't even think such ridiculous comments are worth responding to. Obviously, those things are not true. And Secretary Kennedy is doing a phenomenal job bringing transparency and the gold standard of science back to our healthcare system. Eamon. Thank you, Caroline. The president is hosting a number of Wall Street CEOs for dinner tonight here at the White House. Can you give us the names of the CEOs who are going to be here and give us a sense of what the president's message to Wall Street is going to be tonight? I don't have a full list for you in front of me, Eamon. I know you've reported on some names and we've helped you navigate whether those names were truthful or false. But I know the president actually plans to bring some of you into the dinner tonight. So you'll see for yourself in several hours if that's okay with you. And there's been some reporting that the White House is frustrated with Bill Polty and the rollout of his proposal for a 50-year mortgage. Can you tell us if the White House is frustrated with that rollout and if the White House still supports the idea of a 50-year mortgage for Americans? This is a proposal that the president himself has commented on. I would defer you to the president's statements, and it's something that the administration is discussing and seriously looking into. Sure. Danny, and then go ahead. Thank you. Some Democratic members of Congress have invited Britain's former Prince Andrew to testify on the Epstein scandal. Just wondering if President Trump thinks that former Prince Andrew should indeed come and testify to Congress on that. I haven't spoken to him about that specific matter, but I can ask him and get back to you. On the government shutdown, the president and House Republicans have made clear they were not going to negotiate a health care strategy or policy while the government was shut down. Now, assuming that it reopens tonight, is the president intending to invite any Democrats over to have negotiations over these subsidies or any other plan to bring down the cost of health insurance? I will just add that, as you pointed out, the Democrats were holding our country hostage to try to negotiate on a health care system that they created. Obamacare, as it's famously called, is a system the Democrats created. It is a broken system. It has driven up health care costs dramatically in this country, and now they shut the government down to try to fix that system they broke. It doesn't make any sense to us, which is why the president said that's a completely untenable position. However, once the government reopens, the president, as he's always maintained, is absolutely open to having conversations about health care. And I think you'll see the president putting forth some really good policy proposals the Democrats should take very seriously to fix, again, the system that they broke. You can't trust the same people who broke the system to fix it, and so the American people will continue to hear from the president on this issue. And one follow-up on the question about the $2,000 payments of tariff revenue. The president had also talked about using tariffs to bring down the national debt. Would this be in lieu of that? This is now the new way to maybe use that tariff revenue? No, the president put out a statement on this clarifying he wants to do both. He wants to do both things with the tariff revenue that he's bringing into this country. Trillions of dollars are expected to continue to pour in, and it's part of the reason that the Supreme Court case is so vital for our country's future, to restore our manufacturing industry in this country, to protect our national security, to continue to allow the president to use tariffs as leverage to negotiate economic deals that, again, are good for our national security. And that revenue can then be used for various reasons to pay down our debt, and also, perhaps, to give these rebate checks back to Americans, which, again, the White House is exploring the legal options of how we can get that done. Catherine, go ahead. Thanks, Caroline. Victor Orban said this week that President Trump has promised Hungary some kind of financial shield. Do you have any details on how that will be structured or what that would look like? I don't, but I'm happy to check with the National Security Council and get back to you. One more. You recently said you'd check with President Trump about why he needs to get an MRI on his recent trip to Walter Reed. Do you have any more detail on that? I don't, but I'm happy to check with the National Security Council and get back to you. I do. And I'm glad you asked. As stated in the memo provided on October 10th, President Trump received advanced imaging at Walter Reed Medical Center as part of his routine physical examination. The full results were reviewed by attending radiologists and consultants, and all agreed that President Trump remains in exceptional physical health, which I know all of you will see with your own eyes later this evening when he opens up his dinner to the press. And perhaps you will see him when he signs the bill to reopen the federal government. So stay tuned on plans for that. Thank you, everyone.