Tracking the 45th President of the United States
President Donald Trump is pledging $1 million in personal money to Harvey storm relief efforts.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders made the announcement at a briefing Thursday. She said Trump is calling on reporters to help decide which specific organization he should give to. Continue reading “Thur, Aug 31, 2017: Trump pledges $1 million to Harvey relief effort”
10:30 am: Receives his daily intelligence briefing
11:00 am: Meets with National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster
1:30 pm: Meets with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney
President Donald Trump on Wednesday delivered his opening pitch on tax reform, framing the effort in populist terms saying Republican plans to overhaul the tax code would be a boon for lower- and middle-class Americans.
But Trump offered only broad outlines of what the tax code would look like if his tax reform gambit succeeds, as GOP congressional leaders and the White House have yet to reach an agreement on the details of the tax plan. Trump will meet with congressional leaders to hammer out those details on Tuesday, a White House official said.
“We’re here today to launch our plans to bring back Main Street by reducing the crumbling burden on our companies and on our workers,” Trump said in Springfield, Missouri. “The foundation of our job creation agenda is to fundamentally reform our tax code for the first time in more than 30 years.”
Even as he laid out his tax reform pitch in broad strokes, Trump sought to turn up the pressure on members of Congress to get behind his still-undetailed effort and he called out Missouri’s Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill.
“She must do this for you and if she doesn’t do it for you, you must vote her out of office,” Trump said. “She’s gotta make that commitment. If she doesn’t do it, we can’t do this anymore.”
10:30 am: Receives his daily intelligence briefing
11:00 am: Meets with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer
11:20 am: Departs White House
12:55 pm CT: Arrives Springfield, Missouri
1:30 pm CT: Gives a speech on tax reform; Loren Cook Company
2:35 pm CT: Departs Springfield
6:00 pm: Arrives White House
President Trump on Tuesday assured Texans slammed by Tropical Storm Harvey that “we are here to take care of you” and promised a “better than ever before” relief effort, as he visited the state while rescuers continued to pull people from submerged homes.
During visits first to Corpus Christi on the Gulf Coast, southwest of the worst-hit areas of Houston and its environs, and then to the state capital of Austin, Trump repeatedly praised federal, state and local officials. But he said little about victims who had lost their homes and loved ones to the historic storm.
“The world is watching and the world is very impressed with what you are doing,” Trump told officials at the Texas Department of Public Safety operations center in Austin who were coordinating rescue and shelter operations as rain continued to fall and water continued to swell in flood zones.
Perhaps more welcome than praise was the president’s promise of unspecified federal aid. “We are working with Congress on helping out the state of Texas; it’s going to be a costly proposition,” Trump said, nodding at Texas’ two U.S. senators and several House members, all Republicans, who joined him.
“Probably there’s never been anything so expensive in our country’s history,” he added.
President Trump landed in storm-brushed Corpus Christi on Tuesday morning to see for himself some of the damage caused by Tropical Storm Harvey and demonstrate his personal commitment to a region still in the grips of a historic natural disaster.
Mr. Trump, who pushed aides to schedule a visit to Texas as early as possible after Harvey made landfall near Rockport, Texas, on Friday night as a Category 4 hurricane, initially considered touring San Antonio, which is outside the most hard-hit areas. But he settled on Corpus Christi because it was 30 miles away from the most severely impacted parts of the Gulf Coast, and suffered relatively light damage from the initial impact of the storm.
“It’s a real team, and we want to do it better than ever before,” Mr. Trump said of the response effort during a meeting with officials from local, state and federal agencies in a Corpus Christi firehouse. “We want to be looked at in five years, in 10 years from now as, this is the way to do it.”
Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, sitting next to the president, sought to allay concerns about the situation at the convention center in downtown Houston, where 9,000 residents fleeing rising floodwaters have crammed into a makeshift shelter designed to accommodate 5,000.
8:30 am: With First Lady Melania Trump, departs White House
9:30 am: Speaks with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore by telephone; Air Force One
11:25 am CT: Arrives Corpus Christi, Texas
Noon CT: Receives a briefing on Hurricane Harvey relief efforts with local leadership and relief organizations; Fire Station 5
1:30 pm CT: Departs Corpus Christi
2:25 pm CT: Arrives Austin, Texas
3:00 pm CT: Participates in a tour of the Emergency Operations Center; Austin
3:15 pm CT: Receives a briefing on Hurricane Harvey with State leadership; Governor’s Briefing Room – Texas Department of Public Safety Emergency Operations Center, Austin
4:20 pm CT: Departs Austin
8:30 pm: Arrives White House
President Donald Trump declined Monday to tag Russia as a security threat, saying he would put “many countries” in that category instead.
“I consider many countries as a security threat, unfortunately, when you look at what’s going on in the world today,” Trump said after a Finnish broadcaster asked specifically about Russia and whether the president would consider it a threat to security. Continue reading “Mon, Aug 28, 2017: Trump meets with President of Finland, holds press conference”
10:30 am: Receives his daily intelligence briefing
11:30 am: Receives a national security briefing
12:30 pm: Lunch with Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
3:15 pm: Meets with President Sauli Niinistö of Finland
4:20 pm: Holds a press conference with President Sauli Niinistö of Finland; East Room
11:00 am: Receives a teleconference briefing regarding Hurricane Harvey; Camp David