White House press briefing transcript, Jul 23, 2025

Look, the president has been in very close communication with his friends in the Senate, particularly Senator Lindsey Graham on this issue. But the president has always maintained, you know, he's the—the commander in chief and the president for a reason. Um, and he has been deeply involved in this conflict since the beginning.

Um, and so any — to decisions that are made with respects — respect to sanctions, the president wants to reserve that authority and that right to himself. Jasmine?

Thanks, Karoline. Two questions for you. The first one on AI. Um, does President Trump support federal agencies contracting with Elon Musk's AI company?

I don't think so. No.

Karoline? Okay, so he would want the DOJ to then cancel the contract with ROC.

I'll talk to him about it. Yes?

Karoline? And my second question, just — Karoline? Um, you know, obviously, the developments with the Epstein case with the judge, but I wonder has the White House, White House Counsel, the DOJ explored any other documents that could be released to the public, um, that don't have to do with that grand jury testimony?

Um, to my knowledge, the Department of Justice has moved forward with the request to unseal that grand jury testimony. And as you know, they have also moved forward with, uh, interviewing, uh, Miss Maxwell, which I believe will be taking place very soon.

Karoline? Karoline? Karoline?

Go ahead. Sure.

Thanks, Karoline.

You're welcome.

I have a question about Paul Ingrassia, the OSC nominee who faces a Senate committee hearing tomorrow. Uh, Thom Tillis said that he wouldn't vote for Ingrassia if he came to the — if a vote came to the Senate floor. Two dozen worker advocacy groups have said that they wouldn't—you know, they don't support his nomination.

What is the White House planning to do to sort of turn the tide or convince legislators that they should vote for him?

The White House is always in communication with members of both the Senate and the House. And we stand by the president's nominees.

Karoline? Karoline?

Sure.

Um, in connection with the Mueller investigation, a grand jury indicted 13 Russians. Um, President Putin has said he will never extradite those men. Given the new information that Miss Gabbard has found, what's the administration's position on that case? Should those charges be dropped?

I don't have an update for you on that case, but I'll check in with the National Security Council and our team will get you something.

Karoline? Karoline?

Sure.

Thank you so much. So Fannie Willis and Jack Smith, separately, they both charge President Trump with conspiracy to defraud the United States, and a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. It now turns out we're confirming that Obama and his cronies were doing that the whole time in 2016, on a massive scale, um, falsifying documents and having their Intel agencies do this. What does this — what — what does this say about the 2020 election? And also yeah, what's your thoughts on the irony here?

There is a lot of irony, especially for the party of—of the Democrat Party who claims to be for democracy. We often heard throughout the 2024 campaign, they were calling this president a threat to democracy. And now I think the declassification of all of these documents proves that they were indeed the true threat to democracy.

And as I said repeatedly today, there needs to be justice and accountability for that. You all will hear directly from the president later this afternoon at the AI summit here in Washington DC, scheduled to speak later in a few hours. So we will see you all there. Thank you very much.