White House press briefing transcript, Feb 20, 2025

As a member of Congress, we repeatedly asked the Biden administration those questions, and we never got a satisfactory answer.

Look, President Trump is obviously very frustrated right now with President Zelenskyy -- the fact that -- that he hasn't come to the table, that he hasn't been willing to take this opportunity that we have offered. I think he eventually will get to that point, and I hope so very quickly.

But President Trump is -- as we made clear to our Russian counterparts, and I want to make clear today -- he's focused on stopping the fighting and moving forward. And we could argue all day long about what's happened in the past.

Reagan.

Thanks. I have a question for Stephen --

(Cross-talk.)

-- and a question for Mike.

Excuse me, I just called on Reagan. Reagan, go ahead.

I have a question for Stephen and a question for Mike.

Sure.

Stephen, I can start with you. There have been reports --

Thank you.

-- that Trump is unhappy with the rate of deportations and he wants them to be higher. Is the president happy with the rate of deportations, and are there any plans to speed up the process?

Well, first of all, we all appreciate the encouragement from the media to deport as many illegal aliens as humanly possible. So, thank you.

And I will promise you that the full might of the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, and every element and instrument of national power will be used to remove, with speed, all criminal illegals from the soil of the United States of America, to enforce final removal orders, and to ensure that this country is for American citizens and those who legally belong in this country.

We inherited an ICE that was completely shuttered. We inherited a Department of Homeland Security whose sole mission was to resettle illegal aliens within the United States of America.

In 30 days, the president sealed the border shut, declared the cartels to be terrorist organizations, has increased ICE deportations to levels not seen in decades, and we are shortly on the verge of achieving a pace and speed of deportations this country has never before seen.

Thank you.

And Mike.

Mm-hmm.

There have been reports that there's some underground opposition to Trump's pick for Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Elbridge Colby. Have you or anyone from the administration been personally lobbying senators to support Elbridge Colby?

Look, I've worked with Bridge Co- -- Colby in the past. He has the president's full support to be the Undersecretary of policy, which will be a critical policy arm for Secretary Hegseth going forward that will implement a lot of these policies.

And -- and really, that's -- that's been the extent of it. I think there's been a lot of kind of, you know, breathless -- I don't know -- back-and-forth in the -- in the press, but we're full speed ahead to get the president's team in place so we can implement his America First policy.

Thank you. Mike has spoken pretty extensively. Does anybody have questions for Stephen or for Mr. Hassett?

I do.

Nobody wants to talk about the economy? (Laughter.)

(Cross-talk.)

Sure.

IRS.

IRS. Okay. Go ahead.

And this would be for either one of you. So, we have reported, several other outlets have reported that about 3,500 people are due to be -- lose their jobs at the IRS by the end of the week. If the goal of these spending cuts across the federal government has been to reduce the debt, why impose some of the deepest cuts we've seen so far at the agency responsible for raising revenue for the federal government?

Well, I think our objective is to make sure that the employees that we pay are being productive and effective. And there are many, many -- more than 100,000 people working to collect taxes, and not all of them are fully occupied. And the Treasury secretary is studying the matter and feels like 3,500 is a small number and probably can get bigger, especially as we improve the IT at the IRS.

And so -- so, I think that it's absolutely something that is on the table for good reasons. And the point is that -- don't just talk about the IRS. Talk about all of government, that there are so many places -- I live in D.C.; you maybe live in D.C. -- where you never -- there -- nobody -- nobody is going into the buildings. People aren't commuting because nobody is doing their job. We look back and we see that there are all these people doing two jobs while they're getting a government payroll -- on the payroll.

So, the point is, we're fixing that, and the IRS is a small part of that picture.

So, you're saying that everybody who's being let go was doing a bad job?

I'm saying that we're studying every agency and deciding who to let go and why, and we're doing so very rationally with a lot of support from analysis.

Because we're being told by a lot of people who have been let go at other agencies that they were told they were being dismissed because of poor performance, when, in some cases, they haven't even had a performance review yet because they've only been on the job a couple of months.

Yeah, I've never seen a person who was laid off for poor performance say that they were performing poorly. (Laughter.) Okay?

Karoline.

Good point. Sure, Kaitlan.

I have a question. I'll start with you, Kevin Hassett. Thank you for being here. And then I've got a question for Mr. Waltz.

On these potential checks that you might send out from DOGE, is there a concern, as you're thinking through this, that they could be inflationary?

Oh, absolutely not, because imagine if we don't spend government money and we give it back to people, then the -- you know, if they spend it all, then you're even. But they're probably going to save a lot of it, in which case, you're reducing inflation.

Okay. So, you're not --

And also, when the government spends a lot, that's what creates inflation. We learned that from Joe Biden. And so, if we reduce government spending, then that's -- you know, reduces inflation. And if you give people money, then they're going to save a bunch of it. And -- and when they save it, then that also reduces demand and reduces inflation.

Okay. So, you're not worried about it.

No, I'm not.

And, Mr. Waltz, to follow up on Peter's question, you wrote in an op-ed in the fall of 2023 that, quote, "Putin is to blame, certainly, like al Qaeda was to blame for 9/11."

Mm-hmm.

Do you still feel that way now, or do you share the president's assessment, as he says Ukraine is to blame for the start of this war?

Well, it shouldn't surprise you that I share the president's assessment on all kinds of issues. What I wrote as a Member of Congress is -- was as a former Member of Congress.

Look, what I share the president's assessment on is that the war has to end. And what comes with that? What comes with that should be, at some point, elections. What comes with that should be peace. What comes with that is prosperity that we've just offered in this natural resources and economic partnership arrangement: an end to the killing and European security and security for the world. The President is not only determined to do that in Europe, he's determined to do it in the Middle East.

And just a few months ago, we had an administration that had tried for 15 months, week after week, sitting with you here, and couldn't get us to a ceasefire, couldn't get our hostages out. Now we're at that point. We're back to the maximum pressure on Iran.

And we will -- we have just begun, and we will drive towards a ceasefire and all of those other steps. I'm not going to pre-negotiate or get ahead of the sequencing of all of that. It's a very delicate situation.

But this is a president of peace. And who here would argue against peace?

Okay. So, you do share that assessment.

And can I follow up. In 2017 --

No. Go ahead, Jordan.

-- then-President Trump --

Go ahead, Jordan.

Can I just follow up really quickly?

Thank you. So --

You just had two questions, Kaitlan.

May I -- can I just --

Jordan, go ahead.

Mr. -- Mr. Hassett --

Thank you.

I have an important follow-up for Mike Waltz.

Jordan, go ahead. Go ahead.

So, Mr. Hassett, you were speaking about tariff revenue, and you also addressed a question about the R- -- IRS. President Trump has spoken about replacing income tax with tariff revenue, especially with all this waste, fraud, and abuse that we're seeing cut. Is that a possibility?

Absolutely. And, in fact, if you think about the China tariff revenue that we're estimating is coming in from the 10 percent that we just added, plus the de minimis thing, that it's between $500 billion and a trillion dollars over 10 years, is our estimate. And that's something that is outside of the reductions that markets are seeing through the negotiations up on the Hill.

And so, we expect that the tariff revenue is actually going to make it much easier for Republicans to pass a bill, and that was the President's plan all along.

Thank you.

And I -- I have a question for Stephen Miller about DOGE. So, you -- you spoke about DOGE. You said roughly $50 billion is set to be cut in a year of waste, fraud, and abuse by unelected bureaucrats. We're hearing this ironic narrative from the President's critics and the left-wing media that Elon Musk is an unelected bureaucrat, and he's doing all this terrible stuff. Isn't one of DOGE's objectives to get -- get rid of the federal bureaucracy, the -- the deep state? And also, who was running the White House when Joe Biden was in office --

(Laughs.)

-- because I don't know a single person who believes it was Joe Biden?

Yes. You're -- you're tempting me to say -- (laughs) -- some very harsh things about some of our media friends. The -- yes, it is true that many of the people in this room, for four years, failed to cover the fact that Joe Biden was mentally incompetent and was not running the country.

It is also true that many people in this room who have used this talking point that Elon is not elected fail to understand how government works. So, I'm glad for the opportunity for a brief civics lesson.

A president is elected by the whole American people. He's the only official in the entire government that is elected by the entire nation. Right? Judges are appointed. Members of Congress are elected at the district or state level. Just one man.

And the Constitution, Article Two, has a clause, known as the vesting clause, and it says, "The executive power shall be vested in a president," singular. The whole will of democracy is imbued into the elected president. That president then appoints staff to then impose that democratic will onto the government.

The threat to democracy -- indeed, the existential threat to democracy -- is the unelected bureaucracy of lifetime, tenured civil servants who believe they answer to no one, who believe they can do whatever they want without consequence, who believe they can set their own agenda no matter what Americans vote for.

So, Americans vote for radical FBI reform, and FBI agents say they don't want to change. Or Americans vote for radical reform in our energy policies, but EPA bureaucrats say they don't want to change. Or Americans vote to end DEI -- racist DEI policies, and lawyers in the Department of Justice say they don't want to change.

What President Trump is doing is he is removing federal bureaucrats who are defying democracy by failing to implement his lawful orders, which are the will of the whole American people.

Thank you.

Thanks, Stephen. Can I follow up?

Karoline.

Thank you very much, everybody. I'm looking at the clock. We've almost had an hour of time.

(Cross-talk.)

I know a couple of these individuals have a meeting to get to at 2:00 p.m. So, you're welcome to follow up with my team for further questions. We're going to let these guys get back to running the United States government.

And we will see you all later. President Trump will be speaking at 3 o'clock at the Black History Month reception.

So, thank you. It's good to see you. We'll see you in a bit. Thanks.

Are you going to the Black History Month reception, Mr. Miller?

Stephen, on the fraud. Should we expect indictments?

What is your reaction to Mitch McConnell's retirement?

Are there indictments coming for all the fraud we've found?

I'd love to follow up with you. Just set up a time with Karoline.

Okay. Thank you.