How are we?

Good to see all of you.

It's an honor to be here with all of you, a lot of familiar faces in the room, a lot of new faces.

And President Trump is back, and the golden age of America has most definitely begun.

The Senate has already confirmed five of President Trump's exceptional cabinet nominees, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Treasury Secretary Scott Besant.

It is imperative that the Senate continues to confirm the remainder of the President's well-qualified nominees as quickly as possible.

As you have seen during the past week, President Trump is hard at work fulfilling the promises that he made to the American people on the campaign trail.

Since taking the oath of office, President Trump has taken more than 300 executive actions, secured nearly $1 trillion in U.S. investments, deported illegal alien rapists, gang members, and suspected terrorists from our homeland, and restored common sense to the federal government.

I want to take a moment to go through some of these extraordinary actions.

On day one, President Trump declared a national emergency at our southern border to end the four-year-long invasion of illegal aliens under the previous administration.

Additionally, President Trump signed an executive order to end catch and release and finish construction of his effective border wall.

By using every lever of his federal power, President Trump has sent a loud and clear message to the entire world.

America will no longer tolerate illegal immigration, and this President expects that every nation on this planet will cooperate with the repatriation of their citizens.

As proven by this weekend, when President Trump swiftly directed his team to issue harsh and effective sanctions and tariffs on the Colombian government, upon hearing, they were denied a U.S. military aircraft full of their own citizens who were deported by this administration.

Within hours, the Colombian government agreed to all of President Trump's demands, proving America is once again respected on the world stage.

So to foreign nationals who are thinking about trying to illegally enter the United States, think again.

Under this President, you will be detained, and you will be deported.

Every day, Americans are safer because of the violent criminals that President Trump's administration is removing from our communities.

On January 23rd, ICE New York arrested a Turkish national for entry without inspection who is a known or suspected terrorist.

On January 23rd, ICE San Francisco arrested a citizen of Mexico unlawfully present in the United States who has been convicted of continuous sexual abuse of a child aged 14 years or younger.

ICE St.

Paul has arrested a citizen of Honduras who was convicted of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor.

ICE Buffalo arrested a citizen of Ecuador who has been convicted of rape.

ICE Boston arrested a citizen of the Dominican Republic who has a criminal conviction for second-degree murder.

This criminal was convicted of murder for beating his pregnant wife to death in front of her five-year-old son.

And ICE St.

Paul also arrested a citizen of Mexico who was convicted of possessing pornographic material of a minor on a work computer.

These are the heinous individuals that this administration is removing from American communities every single day, and to the brave state and local law enforcement officers, CBP, and ICE agents who are helping in the facilitation of this deportation operation, President Trump has your back and he is grateful for your hard work.

On the economic front, President Trump took immediate action to lower costs for families who are suffering from four long years of the Biden administration's destructive and inflationary policies.

President Trump ordered the heads of all executive departments and agencies to help deliver emergency price relief to the American people, untangle our economy from Biden's regulatory constraints, and end the reckless war on American energy.

President Trump also signed sweeping executive orders to end the weaponization of government and restore common sense to the federal bureaucracy.

He directed all federal agencies to terminate illegal diversity, equity, and inclusion programs to help return America to a merit-based society.

President Trump also signed an executive order declaring it is now the policy of the federal government that there are only two sexes, male and female.

Sanity has been restored.

Before I take your questions, I would like to point out to all of you once again have access to the most transparent and accessible president in American history.

There has never been a president who communicates with the American people and the American This past week, President Trump has held multiple news conferences, gaggled on Air Force One multiple times, and sat down for a two-part interview on Fox News which aired last week.

As Politico summed it up best, Trump is everywhere again.

And that's because President Trump has a great story to tell about the legendary American revival that is well underway.

And in keeping with this revolutionary media approach that President Trump deployed during the campaign, the Trump White House will speak to all media outlets and personalities, not just the legacy media who are seated in this room.

Because according to recent polling from Gallup, Americans' trust in mass media has fallen to a record low.

Millions of Americans, especially young people, have turned from traditional television outlets and newspapers to consume their news from podcasts, blogs, social media, and other independent outlets.

It's essential to our team that we share President Trump's message everywhere and adapt this White House to the new media landscape in 2025.

To do this, I am excited to announce the following changes will be made to this historic James S.

Brady briefing room, where Mr. Brady's legacy will endure.

This White House believes strongly in the First Amendment, so it's why our team will work diligently to restore the press passes of the 440 journalists whose passes were wrongly revoked by the previous administration.

We're also opening up this briefing room to new media voices who produce news-related content and whose outlet is not already represented by one of the seats in this room.

We welcome independent journalists, podcasters, social media influencers, and content creators to apply for credentials to cover this White House.

And you can apply now on our new website, whitehouse.gov slash new media.

Starting today, this seat in the front of the room, which is usually occupied by the press secretary's staff, will be called the new media seat.

My team will review the applications and give credentials to new media applicants who meet our criteria and pass United States Secret Service requirements to enter the White House complex.

So, in light of these announcements, our first questions for today's briefing will go to these new media members whose outlets, despite being some of the most viewed news websites in the country, have not been given seats in this room.

And before I turn to questions, I do have news directly from the President of the United States, that was just shared with me in the Oval Office, from President Trump directly, an update on the New Jersey drones.

After research and study, the drones that were flying over New Jersey in large numbers were authorized to be flown by the FAA for research and various other reasons.

Many of these drones were also hobbyists, recreational, and private individuals that enjoy flying drones.

In time, it got worse due to curiosity.

This was not the enemy.

A statement from the President of the United States to start this briefing with some news.

And with that, I will turn it over to questions.

And we will begin with our new media members.

Mike Allen from Axios, Matt Boyle from Breitbart.

Mike, why don't you go ahead?

Thank you very much.

Caroline, does the President see anything fishy about Deep Sea, either its origins or its cause?

And could China's ability to make these models quicker, cheaper, affect our thinking about expanding generation data centers, chip manufacturing?

Sure.

The President was asked about Deep Sea last night on Air Force One when he gaggled for I think the third or fourth time throughout the weekend with members of the traveling press corps.

The President said that he believes that this is a wake-up call to the American AI industry.

The last administration sat on their hands and allowed China to rapidly develop this AI program.

And so President Trump believes in restoring American AI dominance.

And that's why he took very strong executive action this past week to sign executive orders to roll back some of the onerous regulations on the AI industry.

And President Trump has also proudly appointed the first AI and crypto czar at this White House, David Sachs, whom I spoke with yesterday.

Very knowledgeable on this subject.

And his team is here working every single day to ensure American AI dominance.

As for the national security implications, I spoke with NSC this morning.

They are looking into what those may be.

And when I have an update, I will share it with you, Mike.

Caroline, you say restore U.S. dominance.

Is there a fear that the U.S. either is falling or has fallen behind?

And how would the President make sure the U.S. stays ahead?

No, the President is confident that we will restore American dominance in AI.

So, Caroline, first of all, thank you to you and President Trump for actually giving voices to media outlets that represent millions and millions of Americans.

The thing I would add, I've got a two-part question for you.

The first is, can you expand upon what steps the White House is going to take to bring more voices, not less, which is what our founder Andrew Breitbart believed in, into this room where they rightly belong?

Yeah, absolutely.

And as I said in my opening statement, Matt, it is a priority of this White House to honor the First Amendment.

And it is a fact that Americans are consuming their news media from various different platforms, especially young people.

And as the youngest press secretary in history, thanks to President Trump, I take great pride in opening up this room to new media voices to share the President's message with as many Americans as possible.

In doing so, number one, we will ensure that outlets like yours, Axios, and Breitbart, which are widely respected and viewed outlets, have an actual seat in this room every day.

We also, again, encourage anybody in this country, whether you are a TikTok content creator, a blogger, a podcaster, if you are producing legitimate news content, no matter the medium, you will be allowed to apply for press credentials to this White House.

And as I said earlier, our new media website is whitehouse.gov slash new media.

And so we encourage people to apply.

Again, as long as you are creating news-related content of the day and you're a legitimate, independent journalist, you're welcome to cover this White House.

And secondly, Caroline, you laid out several of the actions that President Trump has taken.

Obviously, it's a stark contrast to the previous administration to break that speech from President Trump.

Can we expect that pace to continue as the first 100 days moves along here and beyond that?

CAROLINE HUMERA Absolutely.

There's no doubt President Trump has always been the hardest working man in politics.

I think that's been proven over the past week.

This president has, again, signed more than 300 executive orders.

He's taken historic action.

I gaggled aboard Air Force One to mark the first 100 days of this administration, 4 p.m. last Friday, our first 100 hours, rather.

And this president did more in the first 100 hours than the previous president did in the first 100 days.

So President Trump, I think you can all expect for him to continue to work at this breakneck speed.

So I hope you're all ready to work very hard.

I know that we are.

Zeke Miller.

ZEKE MILLER Thanks, Caroline.

A question that we've asked your predecessors of both parties in this job.

When you're up here in this briefing room speaking to the American public, do you view yourself and your role as advocating on behalf of the president or providing the unvarnished truth that is not to lie, not to obfuscate to the American people?

CAROLINE HUMER I commit to telling the truth from this podium every single day.

I commit to speaking on behalf of the president of the United States.

That is my job.

And I will say it's very easy to speak truth from this podium when you have a president who is implementing policies that are wildly popular with the American people.

And that's exactly what this administration is doing.

It's correcting the lies and the wrongs of the past four years, many of the lies that have been told to your faces in this very briefing room.

I will not do that.

But since you brought up truth, Zeke, I would like to point out, while I vow to provide the truth from this podium, we ask that all of you in this room hold yourselves to that same standard.

We know for a fact there have been lies that have been pushed by many legacy media outlets in this country about this president, about his family, and we will not accept that.

We will call you out when we feel that your reporting is wrong or there is misinformation about this White House.

So, yes, I will hold myself to the truth, and I expect everyone in this room to do the Q And, Carol, I just have a substantive question.

Yesterday, the White House Office of Management and Budget directed an across-the-board freeze for individual assistance, we understand, to federal grants.

It's caused a lot of confusion around the country.

Head Start providers among providers, services to homeless veterans, Medicaid providers, states saying they're having trouble accessing the portal.

Can you help us clear up some of the confusion, give some certainty to folks?

And also, is that uncertainty, how does that uncertainty service the president's voters?

CAROLINE COOPER Well, I think there's only uncertainty in this room amongst the media.

There's no uncertainty in this building.

So let me provide the certainty and the clarity that all of you need.

This is not a blanket pause on federal assistance and grant programs from the Trump administration.

Individual assistance, that includes, I'm not naming everything that's included, but just to give you a few examples, Social Security benefits, Medicare benefits, food stamps, welfare benefits, assistance that is going directly to individuals will not be impacted by this pause.

And I want to make that very clear to any Americans who are watching at home who may be a little bit confused about some of the media reporting.

This administration, if you are receiving individual assistance from the federal government, you will still continue to receive that.

However, it is the responsibility of this president and this administration to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars.

That is something that President Trump campaigned on.

That's why he has launched DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, who is working alongside OMB.

And that's why OMB sent out this memo last night, because the president signed an executive order directing OMB to do just this.

And the reason for this is to ensure that every penny that is going out the door is not conflicting with the executive orders and actions that this president has taken.

So what does this pause mean?

It means no more funding for illegal DEI programs.

It means no more funding for the Green New Scam that has cost American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.

It means no more funding for transgenderism and wokeness across our federal bureaucracy and agencies.

No more funding for Green New Deal social engineering policies.

Again, people who are receiving individual assistance, you will continue to receive that.

And President Trump is looking out for you by issuing this pause because he is being good steward of your taxpayer dollars.