The Vice President: Thank you so much, Reince Priebus,
and good morning to all.
To Chairman McAuillfe, to Vice Chairman Sandoval.
Americas governors our cabinet officials it is an honor to
be with you here today and an honor to have
the privledge to welcome you to the White House.
You know its humbling for me to think that just a year ago I was
seated with one of you. Or sitting amoung you.
But thanks to the confidence of our new President and his
historic victory last November
I now have the privlege to serve in a new capacity.
And it is the greatest honor of my life. To be Vice President to
the 45th President of the United States of America.
(appaluse)
So let me speak as a former govenor for just a moment.
As a former governor I first and foremost on behalf of
the President and his family and my
family I just want to thank you for your service
and the service of your family.
I know I speak for the president and the first
lady when I say I hope that last night was a
small token of the appreciation, the
President and our administration feel for
the service you and your family render on behalf of
the people of your states.
And let me also say I want to thank you
for joining us today.
It has been a weekend of vigorous discussions we
began last Friday and I know the Presidents very
much looking forward for the discussion that will
take place here at the white this morning.
You know when I was a governor I just wanted a
President who would listen to me. Right?
A President who would work with me, who would respect
the important constitutional
responsibilities and role that not only that they
played but that I played as a governor.
This morning I assure you, you have that in President
Donald Trump.
(applause)
The President recognizes that Americans
governors have a unique responsibility and a
unique perspective that will play an important
part in the national debate when going forward.
The Presidents view point you are the CEOS of your
state and the CEO who has become President of the
united states understands that and he as directed
our entire administration to work with you in
crafting solutions that will improve the lives,
the prosperity, the security and the well
being of the people we all serve.
And rest assured today is an annual meeting but it
just a beginning of what will be an ongoing
dialogue and I know the president and I and this
administration looking forward to partnering with
you as we make America great again.
Under Donald Trump's leadership I truly do
believe that this is a new day for state and federal
collaboration for the betterment of the
American people.
I look forward to working with you on a range of
issues well talk about today I expect, from
health care to transportation to public
safety to education and most importantly for jobs.
I expect well have our differences but at the end
of the day well never forget in the
administration you never forget that is all of us,
each of us have the awesome privilege of
serving the great people of the united states of
America and well stay focused on that.
I believe this administration will be the
best friend Americas governors have ever had.
Because we have a President who recognizes
that when your state succeeds,
America succeeds.
So now it's my great provide to introduce to
you my great friend, our host, a man
I've come to know.
I like to say he's a distinctly American
leader, broad shoulders, clear vision,
and a big heart.
He loves his family and loves this country with an
unshakeable faith in the American people.
So, ladies and gentlemen, governors, people
of the cabinet.
The President of the United States.
(applause)
The President: Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
That is pretty good, I'll tell you.
Coming from governors, I can't really -- I can't
even believe it.
That's so impressive.
And I very much appreciate you being here.
And thank you to Vice President Pence.
He has been so wonderful to work with.
He's a real talent, a real guy.
And he is central casting, do we agree?
Central casting.
He's been great.
(Applause.)
Good morning, everybody, and
welcome back to the White House.
The First Lady and I were very, very happy last
night to host you.
We saw some real talent, military talent, musicians
who were fantastic.
And everybody enjoyed it.
(Applause.)
I'm very proud to have so many
former governors in my Cabinet.
Vice President Pence, as you know, big governor
from a very great state -- I state I like very much
-- Indiana. Nikki Haley at the U.N.
-- is Nikki here someplace?
I think so -- yes.
We have Rick Perry -- is going before.
We're trying to get people approved, we can't
get them out.
But Rick is going to do a fantastic job.
Sonny Purdue will be joining the
Cabinet very soon.
Terry Branstad will be our ambassador to China.
And an interesting story on Terry -- every time I
spoke in Iowa, he'd say, please don't say anything
bad about China.
(Laughter.)
I said, what do you mean?
What do you mean?
He said, I like China and we do a lot of
business with China.
"And really, just don't" -- and I said, "hmm." So
when it came down to picking an ambassador, I
called him up, I said, you like China.
And I can tell you, China is very, very happy
with our choice.
So we made everybody happy.
(Applause.)
Right? These governors -- thank you.
And thank you, Terry.
These governors have been bold reformers, and their
success shows why we need to make states the
laboratories of democracy once again.
Many of you have shared past frustrations with
waiting for permission from the federal
government and agencies -- and I understand that, and
I've had many people tell me about it, and it's been
catastrophic for some of your states.
You know your citizens and you know they
want things done.
But they don't get things done and it's
not your fault.
Sometimes it's your fault, but they understand that.
But sometimes it's not your fault.
We're going to speed it up.
Because that's not how a partnership is
supposed to work.
The government should not stand in your way in
delivering needed reforms and services --
and it won't.
We're going to move very, very quickly,
environmentally, with Scott and so many others
that are involved in the process of regulation.
We are going to be cutting -- we're going to be doing
the right thing.
We're going to be protecting people
environmentally and safety-wise, but we're
going to be moving it quickly, very quickly.
(Applause.)
And speaking of that, I know many of
you -- and I've spoken to some of you last night
about it -- have many projects that are -- I
mean, just literally tied up because of
environmental concerns, and it's been in for years
and years and years the project your state wants,
great for employment -- everybody wants them --
and they couldn't get them out of
environmental protection.
And we will get them out.
Now, that doesn't mean they're going to be
approved, but they'll be rejected quickly one
way or the other.
They'll be either rejected quickly or they're
going to get approved.
I would say most will be approved, but you're going
to know you're not going to wait nine years or
eleven years -- some of the horror stories
that I've heard.
Under my administration, we're going to have a true
partnership of collaboration
and cooperation.
We will get to the answers and we will get them
quickly, and the flexibility you need to
implement the reforms that you are going to have in
order to make decision-making proper and
decision-making fast.
So we're going to do both those things --
proper and fast.
One of the most important responsibilities for the
federal government is the budget of
the United States.
My first budget will be submitted to the
Congress next month.
This budget will be a public safety and national
security budget, very much based on those two with
plenty of other things, but very strong.
And it will include a historic increase in
defense spending to rebuild the depleted
military of the United States of America at a
time we most need it.
(Applause.)
And you'll be hearing about
that tomorrow night in great detail.
This is a landmark event, a message to the world, in
these dangerous times, of American strength,
security and resolve.
We must ensure that our courageous servicemen and
women have the tools they need to deter war, and
when called upon to fight in our name only
do one thing: Win.
We have to win.
We have to start winning wars again.
I have to say, when I was young, in high school and
college, everybody used to say "we haven't lost a
war" -- we never lost a war -- you remember.
Some of you were right there with me, and you
remember we never lost a war.
America never lost.
And now we never win a war.
We never win.
And we don't fight to win.
We don't fight to win.
So we either got to win, or don't fight it at all.
But where we are -- 17 years -- almost 17 years
of fighting in the Middle East.
I saw a chart the other day -- as of about a month
ago, $6 trillion we've spent in the Middle East
-- $6 trillion.
And I want to tell you, that's just unacceptable.
And we're nowhere.
Actually, if you think about it, we're
less than nowhere.
The Middle East is far worse than it was 16,
17 years ago.
There's not even a contest.
So we've spent $6 trillion.
We have a hornet's nest.
It's a mess like you've never seen before.
We're nowhere.
So we're going to straighten it out.
This defense spending increase will be offset
and paid for by finding greater savings and
efficiencies across the federal government.
We're going to do more with less.
I got involved in an airplane contract, I got
involved in some other contracts, and we cut the
hell out of the prices.
I mean, we saved a lot of money, tremendous amount
of money, beyond anything that the generals that
were involved -- they said they'd never seen anything
like this before.
On one plane, on a small order of one plane, I
saved $725 million.
And I would say I devoted about, if I added it up,
all those calls, probably about an hour.
So I think that might be my highest and best use.
(Laughter.)
Because if we can do that, our
budget will be -- might be my highest and best.
(Applause.)
And there are many other places;
it's all the same.
And in one way, that's a good thing because
we have an answer.
And David is going to do a fantastic job at the VA.
I see David is sitting there, shaking his head.
Stand up, David.
(Applause.)
So we can't get our people through
Cabinet, but he went through -- was it 95
to nothing?
Secretary Shulkin: A hundred to zero.
The President: How the hell did you do that?
(Laughter.)
Boy, oh boy.
He must be good.
You were the one.
One hundred to zero, wow.
Chose you -- hey, we can do it.
But we do -- we have still quite a few Cabinet
members, and they're just in limbo waiting
and waiting.
It's like obstruction.
It's obstruction.
But eventually we'll get them, and they'll put
their people in, and we'll get those agencies, et
cetera, to work.
We're going to do more with less and make the
government lean and accountable to the people.
We can do so much more with the money we spend.
With $20 trillion in debt -- can you imagine that --
the government must learn to tighten its belt,
something families all across the country have
had to learn to do, unfortunately.
But they've had to learn to do it, and they've
done it well.
My budget increases spending, and the increase
in all spending, for federal law
enforcement also.
And activities having to do with law enforcement
will be substantially increased.
And we will fight violent crime.
If you look at what's happening in our cities,
you look at what's happening in Chicago,
what's going on in Chicago -- we will fight violent
crime, and we will win.
And we'll win that one fairly quickly.
Once we give the local police, the local law
enforcement the right to go in and fight it, and we
back them monetarily and also otherwise, we're
going to win that one.
We're going to win it fairly quickly, I believe.
My budget also puts America first by keeping
tax dollars in America to help veterans and
first responders.
So important.
This budget follows through on my promise to
focus on keeping Americans safe, keeping out
terrorists, keeping out criminals, and putting
violent offenders behind bars, or removing them
from our country altogether.
And I must say that we've been treated very well --
very, very well -- on the job that General Kelly has
done at the border.
It's tough, it's strong.
I was talking last night to Terry McAuliffe, and he
said, you have to mention this -- because he met
with -- where is Terry?
He's around here someplace.
Terry -- he met with General Kelly, and I think
I can say you were impressed with
General Kelly.
And he said, you have to get the point out that
they're removing the bad ones.
And that's where our focus is -- it's the bad ones.
We're getting some very, very bad players out of
this country -- drug lords, gang members, heads
of gangs, killers, murderers --
we're getting them out.
That's what we're focused on.
The press isn't covering that, unfortunately, but
it's something that is very important.
We're getting the bad ones out.
And that's always where I said I was going to start.
I was going to start with these bad players.
And they are bad.
They are rough and tough, and we're getting them the
hell out of our country, and we're bringing them to
where they started out.
Let their country do what they have to do with them.
So the budget, which is going to be a very big
part of tomorrow night's speech, it's going to be I
think a budget of great rationality.
But it's going to have to do with military, safety,
economic development, and things such as that.
Great detail tomorrow night.
We're also going to do whatever we can to restore
the authority of the states when that is the
appropriate thing to do.
We're going to give you back a lot of the powers
that have been taken away from states and great
people and great governors.
And you can control it better than the federal
government because you're right on top of it.
You have something that's controllable.
So I think that's going to be very important.
You see that already taking effect.
We have to let the states compete and to see who has
the best solutions.
They know the best how to spend their dollars and
how to take care of the people within each state.
And the states are different, and people
are different.
So the governors are going to have a lot more
decision-making ability than they have right now.
All states will benefit from our economic agenda.
We will reduce taxes very, very substantially, and
simplify the tax code.
We're also going to make taxes between countries
much more fair.
We're one of the only countries in the world
that people can sell their product into us and have
no tax, no nothing, and they get rich.
And yet if you want to do business with them, you'll
have taxes, I've seen, as high as 100 percent.
So they sell into us, no problem; we sell into them
-- because we don't sell them because the tax is so
high that they don't want us to sell into them.
So I know that's always been a point of
contention, but to me it's just fair.
It's just fair.
It's reciprocal.
It's fair.
And so we're going to be doing a lot of work on
that, and that's becoming a very, very important
factor -- fairness.
Because I believe in free trade.
I want so much trade -- somebody said, oh, maybe
he's a total nationalist -- which I am, in a true
sense -- but I want trade.
I want great trade between countries.
But the word "free" is very deceiving, because
it's good for them, it's not good for us.
I want fair trade.
And if we're going to be taxed, they should be
taxed at the same amount, the other countries.
And one of two things is going to happen: We're
going to make a lot of money or the other country
is going to get rid of its tax.
And that's good, too, because now the product,
like Harley-Davidson -- I was talking to them -- the
product will now flow into other countries where
right now they can't do it.
So we're going to make it easier for states to
invest in infrastructure, and I'm going to have a
big statement tomorrow night on infrastructure.
We spent $6 trillion in the Middle East, and we
have potholes all over our highways and our roads.
I have a friend who is in the trucking business.
He said, my trucks are destroyed going from New
York to Los Angeles.
They're destroyed.
He said, I'm not going to get the good trucks.
He always prided himself
on buying the best equipment.
He said, the roads are so bad that, by the time we
make the journey from New York to Los Angeles or
back, he said the equipment is
just beat to hell.
I said, when has it been like that before?
He said, it's never -- he's been in the business
for 40 years -- he said it's never been like that.
Forty years -- never been like that.
So we're going to take care of that.
Infrastructure -- we're going to start spending on
infrastructure big.
And it's not like we have a choice.
It's not like, oh, gee, let's hold it off.
Our highways, our bridges are unsafe.
Our tunnels -- I mean, we have tunnels in New York
where the tiles are on the ceiling, and you see
many tiles missing.
And you wonder, you know, you're driving at 40 miles
an hour, 50 miles an hour through a tunnel.
Take a look at the Lincoln Tunnel and the
Queens-Midtown Tunnel, and you're driving, and you
see all this loose material that's heavy.
And it was made many years ago, so it's heavy.
Today, it's light.
It used to be better.
The problem is, you got to hold it up.
And I say to myself -- every time I drive
through, I say, I wonder how many people are hurt
or injured when they are driving at 40, 50 miles an
hour through a tunnel, and the tile falls off.
And there are so many missing tiles and such
loose concrete.
So we have to fix our infrastructure.
It's not like we have a choice.
We have no choice, and we're going to do it, and
it also happens to mean jobs, which is
a good thing.
We're going to repeal and replace Obamacare, and get
states the flexibility that they need to make the
end result really, really good for them.
A very complicated issue.
We have Tom Price, just got confirmed --
sitting here.
(Applause.)
Stand up, Tom.
And I spent a lot of time with Governor Walker and
Governor Rick Scott the other day -- we were
talking about it.
They're really very expert on the subject, and I want
to thank them.
They spent a lot of time with me.
Governor Christie who's here someplace.
Where's Chris?
Governor Christie, thank you.
And so we have a lot of talent and a lot of
expertise here, I will tell you.
And we have come up with a solution that's really,
really, I think, very good.
Now, I have to tell you, it's an unbelievably
complex subject.
Nobody knew that healthcare could
be so complicated.
And statutorily and for budget purposes, as you
know, we have to do healthcare before we
do the tax cut.
The tax cut is going to be major, it's going to be
simple, and the whole tax plan is wonderful.
But I can't do it until we do healthcare because we
have to know what the healthcare is
going to cost.
And, statutorily, that's the way it is.
So for those people that say, oh, gee, I wish we
could do the tax first -- it just doesn't
work that way.
I would like to do that first.
It's actually -- tax cutting has never been
that easy, but it's a tiny, little ant compared
to what we're talking about with Obamacare.
And you have to remember -- and I say this to
Democrats in the room -- of which we have many --
Obamacare has failed.
If you go to Minnesota, where they had a
66-percent increase, and the governor of Minnesota,
who is with us today, said, Obamacare -- the
Affordable Care Act -- is no longer affordable --
something to that effect.
I think that might be it exactly.
But the Affordable Care Act is no
longer affordable.
Obamacare has failed.
I say to the Republicans, if you really want to do
politically something good, don't do anything.
Sit back for a period of two years, because '17 is
going to be a disaster -- a disaster -- for
Obamacare if we don't do something.
Let it be a disaster because we can blame that
on the Dems that are in our room, and we can blame
that on the Democrats and President Obama.
Let it implode, and then let it implode
in '18 even worse.
Don't do anything, and they will come begging for
us to do something.
But that's not the fair thing to do
for the people.
It's not the fair thing.
Politically, I think it would be a great solution,
because as soon as we touch it, if we do the
most minute thing -- just a tiny, little change --
what's going to happen?
They're going to say, it's the Republicans' problem.
That's the way it is.
But we have to do what's right because Obamacare
is a failed disaster.
And it's interesting, it's sort of like, when you see
-- you see it with politicians, you see it
with President Obama -- when you know he's getting
out of office and the clock is ticking, and he's
not going to be there, his approval rating goes way
up, even though, you know, not that active in the
last period of time.
The approval rating goes up.
That's not him; that's like almost everybody.
I see it happening with Obamacare.
People hate it, but now they see that the end is
coming, and they're saying, oh,
maybe we love it.
There's nothing to love.
It's a disaster, folks, okay?
So you have to remember that.
And, very importantly, we are going to work to
restore local control to our nation's
education system.
Betsy is here someplace, and she is going to be,
I think, fantastic.
(Applause.)
I think she's going to be fantastic.
Stand up, Betsy.
Betsy feels so strongly, and she has had such
support from so many people.
You know, you don't see that too much because you
see the anti, you never see the positive.
But I can tell you, I've had so many calls while
she was going through that horrible process.
That was a tough, tough, nasty process.
And she hung in, she was as strong as you get.
But so many people were calling Betsy, saying you
will do such a fantastic job once you get it.
It's like sometimes I'd say, it's much tougher to
get into Harvard than it is to stay there.
Does that make sense?
It's tougher to get into the Wharton School of
Finance -- you can't get in.
But if you get in, it's fine, you get through, right?
I think you're going to do a fantastic job, and we're
very proud of you.
And you took a lot of heat, but you're
going to do great.
So she wants to bring decision-making powers
back to parents, back to the families and back to
the states, where they can really control education.
And just finally, I'm looking forward to working
with you on these projects and so much more.
We're going to do these projects and so many more.
And I thank you all again for being here.
It's going to be a really productive discussion --
so productive that I'm going to ask the press to
start leaving because I wouldn't want them to see
any great, productive session.
(Laughter.)
But they'll be seeing it and hearing about it.