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Press Briefing by Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney: October 17, 2019
PRESS BRIEFINGS
Press Briefing by Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney
Issued on: October 17, 2019
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
12:39 P.M. EDT
MR. MULVANEY: Hey, guys. How are you all?
{snip}
So we’re going to talk about the G7. We’re going to talk about where we’re going to do it. We’re going to announce today that we’re going to do the 46th G7 Summit on June 10th through June 12th at the Trump National Doral facility in Miami, Florida.
....
Now, let’s talk about the site selection process because I know you folks will ask some questions about that. How do we go about doing this? First of all, we use a lot of the same criteria that have been used by past administrations. There’s a long list of the accommodations on site: the ballrooms, bilateral rooms, the number of rooms, the photo ops, the support hotels that are there, the proximity to cities and airports, helicopter landing zones, medical facilities, et cetera.
So we use the same set of criteria that previous administrations have used. We started with a list of about a dozen, just on paper. And we sent an advance team out to actually visit 10 locations in several states. We visited California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Michigan, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah. Now, we got that list down to just under 10, and the advance team went out to visit those. And from there, we got down to four finalists that our senior team went out to look at. They looked at — I think it was one in Hawaii, two in Utah, and then the Mar-a-Lago facility in Florida.
And it became apparent at the end of that process that Doral was, by far and away — far and away — the best physical facility for this meeting. In fact, I was talking to one of the advance teams when they came back, and I said, “What was it like?” And they said, “Mick, you’re not going to believe this, but it’s almost like they built this facility to host this type of event.” If any of you have been there, you know that there’s separate buildings with their own rooms, separate and apart from each building, so that one country can have a building, another country can have another, you folks could have your building for the press. And obviously, the common areas are going to be perfect for our needs down there.
Again, anticipating your questions: How is this not an emoluments violation? Is the President going to profit from this? I think the President has pretty much made it very clear since he’s got here that he doesn’t profit from being here. He has no interest in profit from being here. It’s one of the reasons that he’s not taken a salary since he’s been here. He’s given that salary to charity. Will not be profiting here.
We had talked about the possibility of whether or not the President could actually do it at no cost, to understand there’s difficulties with doing it that way. But we’ll also have difficulties, obviously, if they charge market rates. So they’re doing this at cost. As a result, it’s actually going to be dramatically cheaper for us to do it at Doral compared to other final sites that we had.
So we’re looking forward to that meeting. Again, June 10th through 12th of next year for the 46th G7.
Now, my guess is, with that official part of the briefing finished, there’s going to be some questions about a variety of things that are going on in the world. So if we can do something together, that would be great. Can we take the questions about the G7 first, go through those, and then take a chance to maybe ask a couple questions about the other stuff before the end of the day?
Eamon?
Q Yeah, thank you. So, how is this not just an enormous conflict of interest for the President to host the G7 at his own resort? And how will the President continue to criticize the Biden family for self-dealing at the same time he’s doing this?
MR. MULVANEY: Okay, a couple different things. First off, you’re not making any profit. I think we’ve already established that. I think some —
Q There’s marketing and branding opportunities (inaudible).
MR. MULVANEY: It’s a huge — I’ve heard — you know, I’ve heard that — I’ve heard that before. You know, I guess I’ve been the Chief now for about 9 or 10 months, and I always hear: Whenever we go to Mar-a-Lago, it’s a huge branding opportunity; whenever he plays at Trump Mar-a-Lago. We play golf at Trump Bedminster. He goes to play golf at Trump, up at Sterling. And everybody asks the question: Is it not a huge marketing opportunity?
I would simply ask you all to consider the possibility that Donald Trump’s brand is probably strong enough as it is and he doesn’t need any more help on that. This is not like it’s the most recognizable name in the English language and probably around the world right now. So, no, that has nothing to do with it.
{snip}
Yes, ma’am.
Q Yeah. A video shown last weekend at that resort –actually, a doctored video — showed the President killing members of the news media and his political opponents. Why do you think he hasn’t spoken directly about the sentiment behind that video?
MR. MULVANEY: Have you asked him?
Q I’m sure —
Q We have asked him. Yes.
Q We’ve asked. We’ve asked for comment over and over again, yes.
MR. MULVANEY: But we put out a statement. And you had a chance to ask him that question yesterday and you asked him something else, which is fine. But —
Q But to be clear, he’s been asked multiple times and hasn’t responded.
MR. MULVANEY: Hold on a sec. Hold on a second. Her question was why he hasn’t answered. We did, as a White House, we listened to that. We didn’t like that. I think we condemn that. That’s not —
Q But he’s the President.
Q (Inaudible) Twitter with 65 million followers, sir.
MR. MULVANEY: Do you — we didn’t. We did not. Did you think that we would?
Q What has the President said about it, Mr. Mulvaney?
Q I mean, that doesn’t sound like a very strong condemnation.
MR. MULVANEY: Oh, come on, Jon.
{snip}
Q Last — last G7 question then, if I can. You were talking about the President’s — this video, where the President was seen shooting members of the media and others that was played at the Doral property there that said that we haven’t had the chance to ask him that question yet, which we have. But broadly, the President has tweeted 45,000 times. Forty-five thousand times. How come the President hasn’t used that Twitter account to more than 60 million followers to condemn it? You’re his Chief of Staff.
MR. MULVANEY: Yeah. The White House put out a statement about it. I mean, that’s —
Q But why hasn’t the President? Because he’s tweeted 45,000 times.
MR. MULVANEY: I’ll tell you what, the next time you ask him — again, it’s not like the man hides from you folks, okay? I think he’s done almost 100 face-to-face interviews with you.
Q We’ve asked him and he’s ignored the question, sir.
MR. MULVANEY: Okay. Anybody else on G7?
{snip}
Q (Inaudible.)
MR. MULVANEY: I’m sorry? This speaks to an important point, because I heard this yesterday and I can never remember the gentleman who testified. Was it McKinney, the guy — was that his name? I don’t know him. He testified yesterday. And if you go — and if you believe the news reports — okay? Because we’ve not seen any transcripts of this. The only transcript I’ve seen was Sondland’s testimony this morning.
If you read the news reports and you believe them — what did McKinney say yesterday? Well, McKinney said yesterday that he was really upset with the political influence in foreign policy. That was one of the reasons he was so upset about this. And I have news for everybody: Get over it. There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy.
{snip}
Q Mr. Mulvaney, what about the Bidens, though, Mr. Mulvaney? Did that come into consideration when that money was held up?
MR. MULVANEY: I’m sorry, I don’t know your name, but he’s being very rude. So go ahead and ask your question.
Q Just to clarify, and just to follow up on that question: So, when you’re saying that politics is going to be involved —
MR. MULVANEY: Yeah.
{snip}
Q Mr. Mulvaney, is it appropriate for any President or this President to pressure a foreign country to investigate a political opponent?
MR. MULVANEY: You know, every time I get that question, that’s one of those things about —
Q It’s a simple question.
MR. MULVANEY: It is, but so is, “When did you stop beating your wife?”
Q So what’s the answer?
MR. MULVANEY: It assumes that the President has done that.
Q Well, what’s the answer? I said “any President.”
MR. MULVANEY: We haven’t done that.
Q I said Mr. Trump or any President.
MR. MULVANEY: I’m not — I’m going to talk about what this President did.
{snip}
END
Press Briefing by Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney
Issued on: October 17, 2019
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
12:39 P.M. EDT
MR. MULVANEY: Hey, guys. How are you all?
{snip}
So we’re going to talk about the G7. We’re going to talk about where we’re going to do it. We’re going to announce today that we’re going to do the 46th G7 Summit on June 10th through June 12th at the Trump National Doral facility in Miami, Florida.
....
Now, let’s talk about the site selection process because I know you folks will ask some questions about that. How do we go about doing this? First of all, we use a lot of the same criteria that have been used by past administrations. There’s a long list of the accommodations on site: the ballrooms, bilateral rooms, the number of rooms, the photo ops, the support hotels that are there, the proximity to cities and airports, helicopter landing zones, medical facilities, et cetera.
So we use the same set of criteria that previous administrations have used. We started with a list of about a dozen, just on paper. And we sent an advance team out to actually visit 10 locations in several states. We visited California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Michigan, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah. Now, we got that list down to just under 10, and the advance team went out to visit those. And from there, we got down to four finalists that our senior team went out to look at. They looked at — I think it was one in Hawaii, two in Utah, and then the Mar-a-Lago facility in Florida.
And it became apparent at the end of that process that Doral was, by far and away — far and away — the best physical facility for this meeting. In fact, I was talking to one of the advance teams when they came back, and I said, “What was it like?” And they said, “Mick, you’re not going to believe this, but it’s almost like they built this facility to host this type of event.” If any of you have been there, you know that there’s separate buildings with their own rooms, separate and apart from each building, so that one country can have a building, another country can have another, you folks could have your building for the press. And obviously, the common areas are going to be perfect for our needs down there.
Again, anticipating your questions: How is this not an emoluments violation? Is the President going to profit from this? I think the President has pretty much made it very clear since he’s got here that he doesn’t profit from being here. He has no interest in profit from being here. It’s one of the reasons that he’s not taken a salary since he’s been here. He’s given that salary to charity. Will not be profiting here.
We had talked about the possibility of whether or not the President could actually do it at no cost, to understand there’s difficulties with doing it that way. But we’ll also have difficulties, obviously, if they charge market rates. So they’re doing this at cost. As a result, it’s actually going to be dramatically cheaper for us to do it at Doral compared to other final sites that we had.
So we’re looking forward to that meeting. Again, June 10th through 12th of next year for the 46th G7.
Now, my guess is, with that official part of the briefing finished, there’s going to be some questions about a variety of things that are going on in the world. So if we can do something together, that would be great. Can we take the questions about the G7 first, go through those, and then take a chance to maybe ask a couple questions about the other stuff before the end of the day?
Eamon?
Q Yeah, thank you. So, how is this not just an enormous conflict of interest for the President to host the G7 at his own resort? And how will the President continue to criticize the Biden family for self-dealing at the same time he’s doing this?
MR. MULVANEY: Okay, a couple different things. First off, you’re not making any profit. I think we’ve already established that. I think some —
Q There’s marketing and branding opportunities (inaudible).
MR. MULVANEY: It’s a huge — I’ve heard — you know, I’ve heard that — I’ve heard that before. You know, I guess I’ve been the Chief now for about 9 or 10 months, and I always hear: Whenever we go to Mar-a-Lago, it’s a huge branding opportunity; whenever he plays at Trump Mar-a-Lago. We play golf at Trump Bedminster. He goes to play golf at Trump, up at Sterling. And everybody asks the question: Is it not a huge marketing opportunity?
I would simply ask you all to consider the possibility that Donald Trump’s brand is probably strong enough as it is and he doesn’t need any more help on that. This is not like it’s the most recognizable name in the English language and probably around the world right now. So, no, that has nothing to do with it.
{snip}
Yes, ma’am.
Q Yeah. A video shown last weekend at that resort –actually, a doctored video — showed the President killing members of the news media and his political opponents. Why do you think he hasn’t spoken directly about the sentiment behind that video?
MR. MULVANEY: Have you asked him?
Q I’m sure —
Q We have asked him. Yes.
Q We’ve asked. We’ve asked for comment over and over again, yes.
MR. MULVANEY: But we put out a statement. And you had a chance to ask him that question yesterday and you asked him something else, which is fine. But —
Q But to be clear, he’s been asked multiple times and hasn’t responded.
MR. MULVANEY: Hold on a sec. Hold on a second. Her question was why he hasn’t answered. We did, as a White House, we listened to that. We didn’t like that. I think we condemn that. That’s not —
Q But he’s the President.
Q (Inaudible) Twitter with 65 million followers, sir.
MR. MULVANEY: Do you — we didn’t. We did not. Did you think that we would?
Q What has the President said about it, Mr. Mulvaney?
Q I mean, that doesn’t sound like a very strong condemnation.
MR. MULVANEY: Oh, come on, Jon.
{snip}
Q Last — last G7 question then, if I can. You were talking about the President’s — this video, where the President was seen shooting members of the media and others that was played at the Doral property there that said that we haven’t had the chance to ask him that question yet, which we have. But broadly, the President has tweeted 45,000 times. Forty-five thousand times. How come the President hasn’t used that Twitter account to more than 60 million followers to condemn it? You’re his Chief of Staff.
MR. MULVANEY: Yeah. The White House put out a statement about it. I mean, that’s —
Q But why hasn’t the President? Because he’s tweeted 45,000 times.
MR. MULVANEY: I’ll tell you what, the next time you ask him — again, it’s not like the man hides from you folks, okay? I think he’s done almost 100 face-to-face interviews with you.
Q We’ve asked him and he’s ignored the question, sir.
MR. MULVANEY: Okay. Anybody else on G7?
{snip}
Q (Inaudible.)
MR. MULVANEY: I’m sorry? This speaks to an important point, because I heard this yesterday and I can never remember the gentleman who testified. Was it McKinney, the guy — was that his name? I don’t know him. He testified yesterday. And if you go — and if you believe the news reports — okay? Because we’ve not seen any transcripts of this. The only transcript I’ve seen was Sondland’s testimony this morning.
If you read the news reports and you believe them — what did McKinney say yesterday? Well, McKinney said yesterday that he was really upset with the political influence in foreign policy. That was one of the reasons he was so upset about this. And I have news for everybody: Get over it. There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy.
{snip}
Q Mr. Mulvaney, what about the Bidens, though, Mr. Mulvaney? Did that come into consideration when that money was held up?
MR. MULVANEY: I’m sorry, I don’t know your name, but he’s being very rude. So go ahead and ask your question.
Q Just to clarify, and just to follow up on that question: So, when you’re saying that politics is going to be involved —
MR. MULVANEY: Yeah.
{snip}
Q Mr. Mulvaney, is it appropriate for any President or this President to pressure a foreign country to investigate a political opponent?
MR. MULVANEY: You know, every time I get that question, that’s one of those things about —
Q It’s a simple question.
MR. MULVANEY: It is, but so is, “When did you stop beating your wife?”
Q So what’s the answer?
MR. MULVANEY: It assumes that the President has done that.
Q Well, what’s the answer? I said “any President.”
MR. MULVANEY: We haven’t done that.
Q I said Mr. Trump or any President.
MR. MULVANEY: I’m not — I’m going to talk about what this President did.
{snip}
END
1:18 P.M. EDT
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