WASHINGTON, DC
By John Fredericks

President Trump was taking no prisoners yesterday in the White House.

In a meeting in the Oval Office earlier yesterday that was open to the White House press pool rotation, POTUS was joined by FBI Director Kash Patel, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

Coverage is provided by the press poolers.

Trump’s Opening Remarks Focus on Crime in American Cities
President Trump’s opening remarks largely focused on crime in American cities. He said the “surge” is coming into Chicago.

Trump on deploying the National Guard in American cities: “This is an amazing thing, and we’re just at the start. We’re going to go into other cities that we’re not talking about purposely. We’re getting ready to go in.”

The President then outlined his case:

“Five months ago, they went into Chicago, and we brought the numbers down a little bit, but that really was just preparatory work for what we’re going to do with the surge. We’re going to have a surge of strong, good people—patriots—and they get to go in, they straighten it all out.”

Trump on Chicago Residents
“The people of Chicago are walking around with MAGA hats. You have women, beautiful Black women, walking around with MAGA hats. ‘Please let the president in and we don’t care how he does it… bring in the Marines.'”

Venezuela Blues
Trump was asked if he is considering land strikes on Venezuela. He said: “We are certainly looking at land now because we’ve got the sea under control.”

Later, the President added, “A lot of the Venezuela drugs come in through the sea. So you get to see that, but we’re going to stop them by land also.”

Trump said that his administration is considering strikes on land amid his crackdown on drug cartels. “Well, I don’t want to tell you exactly, but we are certainly looking at land now because we’ve got the sea very well under control.”

Asked about why he doesn’t use the Coast Guard to stop drug boats, Trump said: “Because we’ve been doing that for thirty years and it’s been totally ineffective. They have faster boats. Some of these boats, seriously, they’re world-class speed boats, but they’re not faster than missiles. But we’ve been trying to do that for years.”

Trump: “And so much of the drugs— 25, 30 percent would come in through the seas. Right now would have, I would say, none are coming in through the seas. In fact, I don’t know about the fishing industry, if you want to go fishing, a lot of people aren’t deciding to even go fishing. We’ve almost totally stopped it by sea. Now we’ll stop it by land.”

Asked why he authorized the CIA to go into Venezuela, Trump said in part: “They have emptied their prisons into the US. Prisoners from mental institutions, insane asylums …”
On his meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky on Friday: “I’ll be talking about the war with him… They want to go offensive. I’ll make a determination on that.”

CHINA: 
On China, asked if we’re in for a sustained trade war if he doesn’t reach a deal with President Xi at their meeting in a few weeks, President Trump said: “Well, you’re in one now.. We have 100% tariffs… If we didn’t have tariffs, we would have no defense. They’ve used tariffs on us.”

On tariffs overall, was clear: “We’re allowed to do whatever we want. We just had presidents that didn’t want to do it for whatever reason. Of the eight wars, tariffs are directly responsible for me ending six of them…”

He said the lawyers challenging his power to impose tariffs are “aligned with foreign nations” and that he plans to go to the Supreme Court to watch the arguments of the tariffs case.

DOJ: 
Trump called Jack Smith a “deranged criminal” and said he hopes Andrew Weissmann, Lisa Monaco, and Adam Schiff get looked into. “I think it was the worst weaponization of a political opponent in the history of the world … Deranged Jack Smith in my opinion is a criminal. I hope they’re gonna look into Weissmann too … Lisa Monaco should be looked at very strongly… I hope they’re looking at Schifty Schiff. I hope they’re looking at all these people. And I’m allowed to find out. I’m in theory the chief law enforcement officer.”

National Dems to Troops: Screw You! 
Democrats have held the government hostage for 15 days on behalf of illegal aliens, voting nine times to block pay for our troops and benefits for hardworking Americans.
Now they’re trying to stop President Trump from using funds to make sure our servicemembers get paid during their shutdown.

Are they seriously considering going to court to stop paychecks to our service members?

• Democrat Leader Chuck Schumer stammered: “The quickest way to do it would be for [Republicans] to come back and negotiate a bill…”
• Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin: “Only Congress has the authority to appropriate money to a federal expenditure.”
• Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes: “I don’t think that’s very likely.”

Democrats are holding hardworking Americans hostage and attacking President Trump for delivering relief because they want to force through their far-left agenda that includes nearly $200 billion in healthcare for criminal illegals—including rapists and murderers. And threatening a lawsuit to stop our troops and their families from getting paid.

“We have the people that we want paid. We want the FBI paid, Trump said.

“We’re getting rid of programs that we didn’t like…They’re going to be terminated on a permanent basis, and it’s thousands of people…tremendous numbers of Democrat projects… Russell Vought is really terminating tremendous numbers of Democrat projects. Not only jobs. I mean the project in Manhattan… The project in New York. It’s billions and billions of dollars that Schumer has worked 20 years to get. It’s terminated.