2025 10 23 Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Briefs Members of the Media, Oct. 23, 2025 part001 (0 14min)

Good afternoon, everybody. I apologize for my tardiness today, so let's get right to it. We'll begin today with some scheduling announcements for President Trump's upcoming trip to Asia. Tomorrow night at 11 p.m., the President will depart the White House to fly to Malaysia, where he will arrive on Sunday morning local time. It's a long flight. President Trump will participate in a bilateral meeting with the Prime Minister of Malaysia in the afternoon, and then he will attend the ASEAN leaders working dinner that evening. On Monday morning local time, the President will fly to Tokyo. Tuesday morning local time, President Trump will participate in a bilateral meeting with the new Prime Minister of Japan. On Wednesday morning local time, the President will fly to Busan, where he will participate in a bilateral meeting with the President of the Republic of Korea. Deliver keynote remarks at the APEC CEO luncheon, and then participate in a U.S. APEC leaders working dinner. On Thursday morning local time, President Trump will participate in a bilateral meeting with President Xi, of the People's Republic of China, before departing to return home to Washington, D.C. On Thursday night, upon arrival in Washington, President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will participate in Halloween at the White House, where they will welcome law enforcement, military, and foster families. And I know many of us look forward to that. In other news, we are now on day 23 of the Democrat government shutdown. Senate Democrats have voted 12 separate times now to keep the government closed. Innocent Americans are suffering every day as a result. More than 500,000 civilian federal employees will miss a full paycheck tomorrow. Thousands of small business loans are going unapproved each month. This means almost $4 billion in capital is being withheld from small businesses across the country. The Democrat shutdown is also causing severe impacts at airports across the country. In one single day this week, the FAA had to issue ground stops impacting flights at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport and Hobby Airport. 13,000 air traffic controllers who ensure that we all fly safely are continuing to work without pay. This is egregious and truly sad. Some of them are reportedly being forced to turn to driving for Uber and taking on other second jobs to make ends meet as the Democrats continue to shut down the government. Pilots are calling on Democrats to end this dangerous political game. The president of the Southwest Airlines Pilot Association called for the clean continuing resolution to be passed. Saying quote, our air traffic controllers and the broader air traffic system are already operating under immense pressure. A government shutdown only compounds that stress and threatens the efficiency of our skies. The airline pilots Association International, which represents more than 80,000 pilots, is sounding the alarm as well. They said this shutdown is undermining our system's safety. Resources are stretch thin, negotiations are delayed, and strain grows daily. With the Thanksgiving holiday approaching, we are nearing the busiest travel period of the entire year, when millions of Americans will go to airports to spend time with their loved ones. Let us be very clear from the White House today. If the Democrats continue to keep the government closed, we fear there will be significant flight delays, disruptions, and cancellations in major airports across the country this holiday season. If Democrats continue to shut down the government, they will also be shutting down American air travel. The White House is in constant communication with the air traffic controllers, with the airline associations, and with them we urge Democrats to please pass the continuing resolution so we can just end this madness in this chaos and reopen the government. These are very avoidable consequences. The unnecessary pain unfortunately does not end there. Funding for the supplemental nutrition assistance program known as SNAP, which provides food benefits to low-income families, is beginning to lapse this week in some states. If Democrats continue to hold Americans hostage, there will not be enough funds to provide SNAP benefits for more than 40 million Americans on November 1st. That is next week. Democrats are solely responsible for all of this unnecessary pain. Why are they doing it? To give taxpayer funded healthcare benefits to illegal aliens, some of whom are violent criminals. During the four years of Joe Biden's administration, the Democrats forced Border Patrol to admit illegal aliens into our country with no legal status in minimal screening. A significant number of these individuals are the worst of the worst criminals, rapists, pedophiles, murderers, and even members of the terrorist watch list. Despite having no legal status, parole aliens were able to file for work authorization, receive social security numbers, and access other benefits like Medicaid that are meant for Americans. Since I have found many in this room to repeatedly deny the reality that Democrats gave Medicaid benefits to illegals, and they continue to seek to do just that, I brought a few verified examples for you today. These are examples of some of the illegals who received Medicaid benefits under President Biden's leadership, and this is what Democrats are wanting to do. This is why they are continuing to keep the government closed. An illegal alien from Laos was arrested for murder, robbery, and felony possession of a firearm. An illegal alien from Guatemala, who was arrested for rape and burglary. An illegal alien from El Salvador, who was arrested for strangulation, DUI, and burglary. An illegal alien from Mexico, who was arrested for attempted murder. The Democrats open border policies allowed these threats into our country, and then they provided them with free healthcare. The President and Republicans, through the One Big Beautiful Bill, implemented a common-sense reform to end this fraudulent scheme. But that's why the Democrats are continuing to shut down the federal government. They are trying to reverse this and restore taxpayer-funded healthcare for illegal aliens like these. Throughout this shutdown, Democrats have said this quiet part out loud. Senator Chuck Schumer, the leader of the caucus, that is refusing to open the government, said, quote, every day gets better as the shutdown continues. Ask the air traffic controllers if every day is getting better, Senator Schumer, and they will tell you absolutely not. House Democrat Catherine Clark said there are going to be families that are going to suffer. We take that responsibility seriously, but this is one of the few leverage points that we have. Here is a House Democrat, who is admitting that they are using Americans who are suffering as political leverage. And Senator Bernie Sanders said, if you reopen the government, we lose our leverage. This is pure partisan games. And a senior Democrat aide said the party will not end the shutdown, quote, short of planes falling out of the sky. That is truly a disturbing statement. The Democrats clearly don't care about this, suffering they care about playing political games against President Trump, and this dangerous charade needs to end. President and Republicans' position has been clear and unchanged. Pass a clean, nonpartisan funding bill to reopen the government. And then we can talk about all of the partisan issues that the Democrats wish to. If you're watching at home, we urge you to call your Democrat senators and tell them to put our country over their party and reopen the government today. Here in our new media seat, we have Brittany Gibson of Axios. Brittany, why don't you start us off for our Q&A today? Thank you for being here. Two questions if I may go on. First is, we understand that the President Republicans will not negotiate on ACA extensions until the government reopens. Even when that happens, what does the President think should be or what are his plans for preventing rising health care costs? It's a very good question, and I'll leave that to the President to negotiate that when Democrats vote to reopen the government. When it comes to lowering health care costs, the President is deeply committed to this. It's why he has spent so much time and effort negotiating with Big Pharma to lower the health care cost of prescription drugs. All of you have been in the Oval Office for multiple different announcements. We've had these most favored nation deals with these large pharmaceutical companies committing to lowering drug costs in this country. So it's something the President wants to do. And Brittany, one more point. I'll just point out the irony in Democrats holding the government and the American public hostage over a health care system that they created. The health care system was called Obamacare. Why? Because Democrats and President Obama implemented. And Republicans have always said it's a broken system, yes. But they caused it, and now they want to shut down the government to fix it. We need to open the government, and then we can have these very important conversations about health care. Second, on H1Bs and foreign students, during the campaign President Trump said he wanted to make it easier for foreign students to work at U.S. companies to stable a green card to every diploma. But the changes from several agencies now on H1Bs are any more obstacles to that. The administration is being sued over those changes. Can you explain the changes to the President's thinking on H1Bs? The administration will fight these lawsuits in court. The President's main priority has always been to put American workers first. And also to strengthen our visa system. We know for far too long the H1B visa system has been spammed with fraud, basically, and that's driven down American wages. So the President wants to refine this system, which is part of the reason he implemented these new policies. These actions are lawful. They are necessary, and we'll continue to fight this battle in court. Gary. Two questions on different topics. Sure. On the pardon of Changping, Zhao, apologies if I'm mispronouncing that name. Finance has significant business interests with World Liberty Financial, the President's families, crypto company. How do you respond to the allegations from Democrats that this is a corrupt act? I would respond and say the President is exercising his constitutional authority to grant clemency requests. And the President and the White House have a very thorough examination of every pardon request that comes to the President's desk. It is thoroughly reviewed by the White House Council Office, and I spoke with our great White House Council about the pardon after it happened. This was an overly prosecuted case by the Biden administration, even the judge in the case admitted that the Biden administration was pursuing a egregious over-sentencing of this individual. And the previous administration was very hostile to the cryptocurrency industry. So the President wants to correct this overreach of the Biden administration's misjustice, and he exercised his constitutional authority to do so. And to the Democrats, I would just say there's nothing more corrupt than what President Biden did on his way out the door, pardoning his extremely corrupt son and many of his associates. On the ballroom, first of all, would you have probably several questions about this, I imagine. Is it a big story? It seems that way. The President's estimate has changed several times. It gets up to 300 million now. Given the nature of all this, will the White House commit to releasing all of the donors and how much they're spending, and how much of his own money the President is putting online to this? We have released the full list of donors thus far. Perhaps there will be more people who want to generously contribute to this project. And the President, yes, has committed his own resources. And when he releases that information, which I'm very confident he will, you will all see that. I would think you're from the President. Yes, he will. And I would also just add, the President has been incredibly transparent. I would reject any notion otherwise when it comes to this ballroom project. It's something he personally has obviously taken an interest into and has talked with all of you in this room many times about. You have seen the model in the Oval Office last night he showed that for you. But when this plan was presented and when these renderings, as soon as they were complete, the President directed me to come out here and to share them with all of you. I did an entire opening remarks about what this ballroom project was going to look like. With any construction project, there are changes over time as you assess what the project is going to look like. And we'll continue to keep you apprised of all of those changes. But just trust the process. This is going to be a magnificent addition to the White House for many years to come. And it's not costing the taxpayers anything. The President is privately funding this ballroom addition to the White House grounds. Jennifer. To follow up on that one thing that's not in the President's model is the East Wing bunker, the President's Emergency Operations Center. Can you say of his update that $300 million does that include the cost for upgrading that bunker? Look, like any security enhancements that are made on the White House grounds, those will be made and maintained by United States Secret Service, as for the cost of the ballroom and the construction itself. All of that is going to be, like I've said, privately funded and paid for by the President himself in many generous patriots who have stepped up. Did it in that funding? Correct. Okay. And then can you say, well, those are, I'll skip that one. Thanks. We did. Thank you. So the White House has explained that the reason you didn't submit construction plans to the NCPC is because that commission, along with others, don't have oversight over demolitions, but only over construction. And so far, you haven't built anything. So can you help us understand, can the President tear down anything he wants without...