Thread by @Headsnipe011

Round 2

Press Briefing on the President’s Agenda at the U.N. General Assembly | New York, NY

@drawandstrike @ThomasWictor @HNIJohnMiller @catesduane @rising_serpent @_ImperatorRex_ @Debradelai @GodlessNZ @almostjingo @tracybeanz @MAGALisaHartz

whitehouse.gov/briefings-stat…

***Acosta tagteam***

MS. WALTERS: Jim Acosta, CNN.

Q Yes, Ambassador Haley, you’re the lone person here that has been with the administration since the beginning. In the story about Rod Rosenstein on Friday, it was mentioned that he had been involved in...

circulating discussions about invoking the 25th Amendment to have the President removed from office. Were you ever involved in any of those discussions? Were you aware of any of those discussions? And I did have a North Korea follow-up for the Secretary.

AMBASSADOR HALEY: I mean, I said yesterday, on the Sunday shows, that, literally, I have never once been in the White House where that conversation has happened. I am not aware of any Cabinet members that are even talking about that. It is completely and totally absurd.

No one is questioning the President at all. If anything, we’re trying to keep up the pace with him, in the fact that he’s got a lot he wants to accomplish very quickly, and we’re going to continue to support him in the way that he does that.

Q I appreciate that. And, Secretary Pompeo, if I may ask you a follow-up on North Korea. Before you went into the summit with Kim Jong Un in Singapore, you did not have an agreement really in place for complete denuclearization.

Why should you have another summit with Kim Jong Un — a second summit the President talked about this morning — if you don’t have the details in place? It just seems, even to the layman, that you sort of have the process backwards;

that you would want the details in place before having a summit. And here you may do it for a second time.

SECRETARY POMPEO: Two things. Fact check: I’ve been with the administration since the beginning too. Not that that’s relevant. (Laughter.) But I’ll add, no discussion with me about the 25th Amendment anywhere either.

Q Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. Yes, sir.

SECRETARY POMPEO: So you can now report that there are two senior leaders that have said that your statement — your question was ludicrous. (Laughter.)

Second point, with respect to North Korea: Look, we went —

Q Well, if it’s so ludicrous — if I may ask, if it’s so ludicrous — and I apologize for not remembering that you were the CIA Director. Obviously, you were the CIA Director. If it’s so ludicrous, why did the Deputy Attorney General have discussions about it behind the scenes?

SECRETARY POMPEO: I find the question ludicrous. I’ve been involved — I’ve been at the center of this administration, along with lots of other folks, from virtually day one. I think it was actually day three or four. I’ve never heard anyone talk about it,

whisper about it, joke about it in any way. I’ve been in a lot of meetings with a lot of senior officials from this government.

Your question on North Korea: Remember the history. We went at this the other way for decades, and North Korea continued to build its nuclear program.

Right? We tried to do details. We tried to do step-for-step. We tried to do trade-for-trade. Each of those failed.

We’re coming at this from a different direction. We’re bringing the two senior leaders, the individuals who can actually make the decisions that will move this process forward,

bring them together so we can continue to make progress towards what the U.N. Security Council has demanded and what Chairman Kim has promised he would do.

That’s the effort. There remains work to be done. There will be some time before we get to complete denuclearization for sure. But we’ve been at this the other way for an awfully long time and failed,

and put America in the position it finds itself today: At risk from North Korean nuclear weapons.

Q And wouldn’t it be ludicrous to have another meeting with Kim Jong Un if you don’t have the details in place?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Absolutely not. If we can continue to make progress and have conversations, I think there’s enormous value in that.