Thread by @BBuchman_CNS

THREAD - POTUS speaks to reporters before boarding Marine One today and addresses several topics, from the caravan to Khashoggi to Lyin' Ted, who is now, according to Trump, "Beautiful Ted."

Trump spoke to reporters before boarding Marine One today. On his tweet re: "unknown Middle Easterners:"
"Well, you're going to have to see that. I had reports and they have a lot of everybody in the group. It's a horrible thing and it's a lot bigger than 5,000 people...

Trump cont: "...and we got to stop 'em at the border and unfortunately, you look at the countries, they have not done their job. Unfortunately, they have not done their job."

Also says on aid $ - Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador- "Every year we give them foreign aid and they did nothing for us. Nothing. They did nothing for us. So we give them tremendous amounts of money. You know what it is, you cover it all the time...

Trump continued: "They, like a lot of others, do nothing for our country."
On Saudi Arabia, says he's spoken to crown prince.
"We have people over in Saudi Arabia now. We have top intelligence people in Turkey. We're going to see what we have...

Trump cont.: "I'll know a lot tomorrow. They'll be coming back either tonight or tomorrow morning. But we have people in Saudi Arabia and in Turkey."

On transgender redefine NYT report:
"We're looking at it. We have a lot of different concepts right now. They have a lot of different things happening with respect to transgender right now. You know that as well as I do and we're looking at it very seriously."

Reporters asked about his promise to protect LGBT:
Trump: "I'm protecting everybody. You know what I'm doing? I'm protecting everybody. I want to protect our country."

On Ted Cruz, Beto O'Rourke and the race in TX:
TRUMP: "I think Beto O'Rourke is highly overrated. What I heard about him, I figured he must be something a little special. He's not. I thought he got beaten badly in the debates. I think he's a highly overrated guy."

POTUS adds: "Ted and I get along very well. Very late into the campaign and I said don't worry about it, it's only a question of time, and then it became very nasty and then it was over and, when it was over, we got along great. No, I like Ted."

Is he still "Lyin' Ted?"
POTUS: "He's not Lyin' Ted any more. He's Beautiful Ted. I call him Texas Ted. Ted Cruz and I have a very, very nasty and tough campaign. It was a very competitive, it was a very tough campaign. "

On Nellie Ohr - POTUS says she's a "disgrace."
"And I think her husband's not much better. Maybe he's worse. I think Nellie Ohr is a disgrace, taking marital protection so she doesn't have to talk about corruption. I think she's a disgrace."

On Khashoggi/Rand Paul critiques:
"I agree with Rand on a lot of things. I don't want to lose all of that investment that's being made in our country. I don't want to lose a million jobs...

Trump continues: "I don't want to lose $110 billion in terms of investment, but it's really $450 billion if you include other than military, so that's very important. But we're going to get to the bottom of it."