Tag Archive for: oval office

VIDEO: Trump Awards Medals To Kennedy Center Honorees

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President Trump celebrated a star-studded lineup of the nation’s most “acclaimed and renowned” performers by awarding them newly-minted medals in the Oval Office.

Dressed in a tuxedo, Trump awarded gold medallions to to this year’s Kennedy Center Honorees December 6, including Academy Award-nominated “Rocky” actor and filmmaker Sylvester Stallone, Gene Simmons from KISS, singer Gloria Gaynor, actor Michael Crawford, and country music legend George Strait.

“This is a group of icons whose work and accomplishments have inspired, uplifted and unified millions and millions of Americans,” Trump boasted.

At the ceremony, the president draped a custom Tiffany & Co. medal around each honoree’s neck. Unlike the traditional rainbow ribbon with gold plates, the medal hung from a blue ribbon, featuring the recipient’s name on one side and the Kennedy Center with rainbow colors on the other. The luxury jeweler donated the prestigious medallions for the event.

Trump personally placed the Kennedy Center Honors medal around each honoree’s neck.

“This is perhaps the most accomplished and renowned class of Kennedy Center Honorees ever assembled,” he said.

Outside the Oval Office, the Rose Garden echoed with hits like Gaynor’s 1978 anthem “I Will Survive” and KISS’s “I Was Made for Lovin’ You,” along with other hits from the performers.

The president also highlighted the ongoing renovations at the John F. Kennedy Performing Arts Center in Washington, DC.

“We are making something really special,” he said.

“It’s been mistreated, a little bit like the White House has been mistreated to be honest with you, and we are bringing it back to a level that I don’t think any place in the country will see.”

Trump, the chairman of the Kennedy Center, will host the 48th annual awards show Sunday, and is expected to be joined by First Lady Melania. 

The 48th Kennedy Center Honors ceremony is set for Sunday evening.

AUTHOR

Leena Nasir

Entertainment Reporter

RELATED ARTICLE: Tommy Hilfiger, Kurt Russell Among Celebrities On Star-Studded Kennedy Center Honors Guest List

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

EXCLUSIVE: Trump Open To Bringing Back Insane Asylums To Clean Up Streets

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THE OVAL OFFICE — President Donald Trump told the Daily Caller that he is open to bringing back insane asylums to institutionalize mentally ill individuals on America’s streets.

Daily Caller White House Correspondent Reagan Reese sat down with Trump in the Oval Office on Friday for an hour-long interview. The president spoke at length about his work cleaning up the streets of D.C.,  and also added that he was open to having the government reopen insane asylums, telling the Caller about how they used to run in New York.

The following is an unedited excerpt from the interview. A full transcript will be made available Monday evening.

REESE: It’s horrible. I want to get to Russia. I want to ask you another question about D.C. crackdown. Would you be open to the government reopening insane asylums for people with serious mental illness?

TRUMP: Yeah I would.

REESE: You would?

TRUMP: Well, they used to have them, and you never saw people like we had, you know, they used to have them. And what happened is states like New York and California that had them, New York had a lot of them. They released them all into society because they couldn’t afford it. You know, it’s massively expensive. But we had, they were all over New York. I remember when I was growing up, Creedmoor. They had a place, Creedmoor, they had a lot of them, Bellevue, and they were closed by a certain governor. And I remember when they did, it was a long time ago, and I said they didn’t release these people? And they did. They released them into society, and that’s what you have. It’s a rough, it’s a rough situation.

REESE: How soon –

TRUMP: Why is that a big thing? People are thinking about that?

REESE: Well –

TRUMP: Because, you can’t have these people walking around.

REESE: I mean, what do you do with them? You know?

TRUMP: So dangerous, so dangerous. And they can live to be 85 years old.

REESE: I moved from Washington, D.C., to Virginia because I felt unsafe. We had an attempted break-in, me and my roommates from my place on Capitol Hill, and I just moved to Virginia, thinking it’s so much safer. And I had to call 911, the other day because I watched a homeless guy beat up a pedestrian. And the 911 –

TRUMP: When was that?

REESE: A week ago.

TRUMP: During my time?

REESE: This was in Virginia, though. This was not in Washington, D.C.

TRUMP: Oh in Virginia. We don’t take [inaudible.]

REESE: No I know. Now I’m saying, now I’m like, why did I move from Washington, D.C. to Virginia right after you cleaned it up?

TRUMP: So safe.

TRUMP: Yeah, I call it a crime free zone because we don’t play games. You know, I said they spit, we hit. You know, when these people – women – they’re standing up to these guys, good looking guys, and they want to do something, but they’re not allowed to. If they do, they’ll be arrested. They’ll arrest the soldiers. They had an arrest warrant out on every single soldier, if they hit back, there was an automatic arrest. So you have these people, they scream, they’re this far away, screaming. Some women, screaming, like crazy, they’re crazy. And then they start spitting in the face of the guy. And these guys are just, they wouldn’t, but they can’t do it. Now they can do it. So I said, we spit– they spit, we hit. Right?

Trump sent federal law enforcement and the National Guard into D.C. on Aug. 7, with his creation of the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force. The president then moved to federalize the D.C. police and deploy the National Guard a few days later.

As of Aug. 29, there have been 1,369 total arrests since the beginning of the operation, a White House official shared with the Caller. Many illegal aliens have been arrested, including 12 known gang members who are a part of MS-13 and TDA, the official told the Caller. The operation has also found five missing children and cleared 50 homeless encampments.

The president previously told reporters he wants to clean up other cities such as Chicago and New York.

AUTHOR

Reagan Reese

White House Correspondent

RELATED ARTICLE: Numbers Don’t Lie: Trump’s DC Crackdown Is Working

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

EXCLUSIVE: Trump Has No Problem Seeing Comey, Brennan Behind Bars For Russiagate Hoax

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THE OVAL OFFICE — President Donald Trump told the Daily Caller that it “would not bother” him to see James Comey and John Brennan arrested as a result of his administration’s investigation into Russiagate.

The Daily Caller sat down with Trump for an hour-long interview on Friday. Trump told Daily Caller White House Correspondent Reagan Reese that while he isn’t directly involved in the Russiagate investigation, he does believe it should result in arrests.

The following is an unedited excerpt from the interview. A full transcript will be made available Monday.

DAILY CALLER WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT REAGAN REESE: I want to ask you about Russiagate. Director Gabbard has declassified Russiagate documents. They’re explosive. She’s referred the case to the DOJ.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: By the way, she’s coming along, right?

REESE: Yeah. Do you think there are going to be arrests? Who do you think is going to be arrested, and how quickly?

TRUMP: I don’t know if there’s going to be. There should be. What they did is a disgrace. They cheated, they lied, they did so many bad things, evil things that were so bad for the country, and because they did something to me that should have never been done, nobody thought they’d ever do that. Actually, when I left, nobody thought that would happen. They get – they just went crazy. They’re bad people. They’re sick people. They’re the ones that committed all the crimes. We didn’t commit crimes. They committed all the crimes, there should be, I can’t tell you whether or not because I really I don’t have to stay uninvolved. I’m allowed to stay involved, but I purposely don’t get involved. I can say that they should be arrested.

TRUMP: They lied, they cheated, they did everything you can do that’s illegal, and then they accused — it’s amazing, even I see it now with me. They say he’s actually looking to arrest him. What the hell did they do with me? You know? And then they’ll say he’s – they make it sound like I’m a bad guy. I had to have a mug shot taken, right? Yeah, these are bad people. They’re sick people, and, you know, the press plays along with it. But they should be. I mean, I’m probably answering the question more than you think I should. They should be [arrested]  because they’re crooked and they got caught.

REESE: So James Comey and John Brennan, would you be comfortable seeing them handcuffed and arrested live on TV?

TRUMP: Would not bother me at all.

REAGAN: Do you think it’s a possibility?

TRUMP: See, I wouldn’t have answered that question that way four years ago.  Do you understand that? I wouldn’t. Because, well, Hillary’s a good example. We had Hillary cold. I didn’t want to see that. I didn’t want the, you know, the wife of a president, to go to jail, but she was stone cold guilty of things. And if you remember, at the, at the big rallies, I’d say, ‘Alright, take it easy.’ You know, they’d all say, ‘Lock her up. Lock her up.’ After we won, before I won, just, they could do whatever they wanted. After I won – yeah, I was very gracious. And I assumed that, you know, I was a president, we had a great first term, first, not like this one, though.

REESE: Yeah, this feels different.

TRUMP:  It’s better. It’s, I don’t even know, I don’t think it’s experience. If you look at the first term of this, you know, we had a great first and we had a great economy. We rebuilt the military, we did the wall, we did the whole thing. And we did great on immigration. But the thing is, that immigration was peanuts compared to what they left me, because when I mean they left, people were coming in, millions of people a month. Remember that they had a period of time, seven months, when anybody in the world just poured into this place, and we have to, we have to get them out, because they’re very, very dangerous.

TRUMP: No, if, depending on what they find, they’re guilty, they’re guilty. They’re bad people, and they are very, very sick people, beyond bad. They’re sick.

Gabbard released documents in July which showed what she said was “overwhelming evidence” that former President Barack Obama and his national security team “manufactured and politicized intelligence” after Trump’s 2016 victory. Gabbard referred the case to the Department of Justice. 

Comey and Brennan are two potential indictments that could come first in connection to their roles in pushing the fake narrative that Trump officials colluded with Russia during the 2016 election, the Caller previously reported.

AUTHOR

Reagan Reese

White House Correspondent

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘We Found Stuff’: Dan Bongino Claims Room Full Of Evidence Found From Comey-Era FBI

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

EXCLUSIVE: Trump Lays ‘America First’ Plan For Helping Ukraine End War, Casts Doubt On Putin-Zelenskyy Meeting

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THE OVAL OFFICE — President Donald Trump told the Daily Caller on Friday that a Putin-Zelenskyy meeting seems unlikely, and American jets may be needed to help Europe secure an end to the war.

The Daily Caller sat down with Trump for an hour-long interview in the Oval Office on Friday. He discussed his plan to end the Russia-Ukraine war with Daily Caller White House Correspondent Reagan Reese, saying that he is willing to help out with security guarantees, even if it involves American air support, to stop the war. Trump addressed concerns that continued U.S. involvement isn’t “America First” and cast doubt on a Putin-Zelenskyy meeting happening anytime soon.

The following is an unedited excerpt from the transcript of the interview:

DAILY CALLER WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT REAGAN REESE: I want to come back to Russia. Are you still considering with security guarantees, using U.S. soldiers…

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No

REESE: and planes in the air, I mean, in the air.

TRUMP: Maybe we’ll do something. Look, I’d like to see something get solved. They’re not our soldiers, but there are, five to 7,000, mostly young people being killed every single week. If I could stop that and have a plane flying around the air every once in a while, it’s going to be mostly the Europeans, but we, we’d help them. They, you know, they sort of need it, and we’d help them if we could get something done.

REESE: Are you concerned at all – I know some of your base thinks that’s not our war –

TRUMP: It’s not our war –

REESE: …and they don’t want our Americans over there at all. Are you concerned about how that might square with the America First agenda?

TRUMP: So there are a lot of people that so agree. Look, we were spending hundreds of billions of dollars in that war. Now we sell equipment to NATO. I got them to go from two to five. Nobody thought that was, and pay. We sell equipment to NATO. We don’t sell it to Ukraine. We sell it to NATO. They pay for the equipment. We’re not spending any money in the war. That’s some difference, right there. So add that one up. And other than that, look, if I don’t think it can be settled without a security guarantee of some kind, and we’re not going to have boots on the ground or anything else. But if we can help Europe, and you know, they’ll, they’ll be out there.

TRUMP: They want to, they want to see it get settled, but if we can help them, I’d be willing to do that. We’re talking about a lot of lives. We’re not talking about something that I started. I inherited this war. And all I’m trying to do is put out the flame, you know. And I thought I had it done. I did it seven times with other, I did it with wars that were tougher than this in terms of nobody. So three of those wars are going on for more than 30 years, and I got them all done. This war is just, it’s been very difficult. It’s been a difficult war.

REESE: You mentioned, I believe in a Truth Social post, that there was a big thing that you and Putin didn’t agree on in Alaska. What was that big thing?

TRUMP: I don’t know. We got along. You saw it, we’ve had a good relationship over the years, very good, actually. That’s why I really thought we would have this done. I would have loved to have had it done. Maybe they have to fight a little longer. You know, just keep fighting. — stupidly, keep fighting.

REESE: Do you think a trilateral will still happen?

TRUMP: A tri would happen. A bi, I don’t know about, but a tri will happen. But, you know, sometimes people aren’t ready for it. I say, I use the analogy. I’ve used it a couple of times. You have a child, and there’s another child in the lot, in the playground, and they hate each other, and they start swinging, swinging and swinging, and you want them to stop, and they keep going. After a little while, they’re very happy to stop. Do you understand that? It’s almost that way. Sometimes they have to fight for a little bit before you can get them to stop. But this has been going on for a long time. A lot of people are dead.

The president ruled out American boots on the ground in Ukraine as a part of a security guarantee during an Aug. 19 interview with Fox News. Trump indicated openness at the time to using U.S. forces in the air as a part of a deal.

Trump told reporters on Monday that “it takes two to tango” and that it would need to be up to Zelenskyy and Putin to set it up. The Russians have so far said they’re unwilling to have the bilateral meeting with Zelenskyy and have continued to strike Ukrainian civilian targets in recent weeks.

AUTHOR

Reagan Reese

White House Correspondent

RELATED ARTICLE: Trump Pentagon Reportedly Blocking Ukraine From Firing Western Missiles Deep Into Russia

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Trump Forces South African President To Watch Video Of Country’s Leaders Calling For Genocide

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President Donald Trump forced the President of the Republic of South Africa to watch videos of the country’s leaders calling for the genocide of white farmers during a meeting in the Oval Office on Wednesday.

South African president Cyril Ramaphosa visited Trump for a bilateral meeting as well as a private lunch. In the middle of their public conversation, Trump ordered his staff to dim the lights and play videos of “genocide in South Africa” for attendees of the meeting.

The video montage showed different clips of political leaders from the minority party in South Africa calling for killing the Boers — a term that means “farmers” and refers to white South Africans — and supporters chanting along. Another clip showed what Trump said were a thousand burial sites of deceased white farmers in South Africa and their families lining up to pay their respects. For most of the footage, Ramaphosa faced forward or glanced at Trump instead of looking at the screen, which was to his right.

“Burial sites. Right here. Burial sites. Over a thousand white farmers and those cars are lined up to pay love on a Sunday morning. Each one of those white things you see is a cross. And there is approximately a thousand of them. They are all white farmers, the family of white farmers. And those cars aren’t driving. They are stopped there to pay respects to their family member who was killed,” Trump said.

Ramaphosa turned to watch the video.

“And it’s a terrible sight, I have never seen anything like it,” Trump said.

Ramaphosa then asked the president to find out where the last video he showed took place because he had never seen the footage before.

“South Africa,” Trump asserted.

“I need to find out,” Ramaphosa said of the location of the video.

As the duo started taking questions about the videos shown in the Oval Office, Trump then got into a back-and-forth with Ramaphosa.

“What you saw, the speeches that were being made … one, that’s not government policy. We have a multiparty democracy in South Africa that allows people to express themselves, political parties to various policies. In many cases, or in some cases, those policies don’t go along with government policy. Our government policy is completely, completely against what [the leaders were] saying, even in the parliament — a minority party, which is allowed to exist in terms of our constitution,” Ramaphosa began.

“But you do allow them to take land,” the president interjected.

“No, nobody can take land,” Ramaphosa quickly jumped in.

“When they take the land, they kill the white farmer, and when they do, nothing happens to them. Nothing happens to them,” Trump countered, asking the South African president, “How do you explain that?”

AUTHOR

Reagan Reese

White House Correspondent. Follow Reagan on Twitter.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Death, Death, Horrible Death’ — Trump Tees Off On Reporter Pivoting From Genocide Of White South Africans

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.