President Trump hosts a press availability prior to a bilateral meeting with President Abdo Benitez of Paraguay.  [Video and Transcript Below]

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[Transcript] – PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, thank you very much. It’s great to have the President of Paraguay here. We’re doing a lot of work with Paraguay on terrorism, on drugs, on trade — a lot of different things. And we’ve had a great relationship. So, Mr. President, it’s an honor to have you. Thank you very much.
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Chopper pressers are the best pressers; but twilight chopper pressers in the rain are even better.  President Trump delivers remarks to the press poll as he departs the White House for a rally in Pennsylvania. [Video and Transcript Below]

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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Okay. It’s pretty wet out here. We’re going to Hershey, Pennsylvania, tonight. We have a big rally — a lot of people, tremendous lines, great enthusiasm. There’s never been this enthusiasm, in my opinion, for the Republican Party. The Republicans have stuck together through the witch hunt. It’s a terrible thing, but even the Democrats — they couldn’t find very much because they put up two articles that, frankly, are very weak. And they’re very weak.
Also, they approved, today, of all days — we’ve been waiting a year — and they approved today the USMCA. And I call that the “silver lining” to impeachment. Because without the impeachment, they would have never approved it, in my opinion. The impeachment is the reason they approved it.
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Chopper pressers are the best pressers. Earlier today President Trump paused to deliver remarks on current events to the press pool as he departed the White House for a trip to Florida.  [Video and Transcript Below]

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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. That’s a very bright sun. Beautiful day in Washington.
I will say that we’ve had tremendous reports coming out of the economy — it’s been incredible — and numbers like we haven’t seen before. And we have the strongest economy in the world: 266,000 jobs; you can add another 40 [thousand] to that. It’s about 300,000 jobs. Very importantly, it’s 50- or 55,000 manufacturing jobs. We’re the envy of the world. Our economy is the envy of the world, and we’re going to keep it that way. So that’s very important.
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Chopper pressers are the best pressers.  Earlier today President Trump paused to talk to the press pool prior to departing the White House for the NATO summit in the U.K. [Video and Rough Transcript Below]

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[Rough Pool Transcript] – President Trump … we’re fighting for the American people. It has not been a fair situation for us because we pay far too much as you know. Secretary Stoltenberg said we were responsible — I was responsible — for getting over $130 billion extra from other countries that we protect, that weren’t paying. They were delinquent. So we’ll be talking about that. We’ll be talking about a lot of things.
We are leading the world now on the economy, and we have been almost since I became president. But we are substantially ahead of anybody else. Nobody’s even close. You know that very well. And I look forward to having a number of very, very productive days for our country. We’ll be working hard. Do you have a question?
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Earlier today President Trump and Bulgarian Prime Minister Borissov held a press availability in the oval office prior to their bilateral meeting.  [Video and Transcript]

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[Transcript] – PRIME MINISTER BORISSOV: (As interpreted.) The Bulgarians like you so much, and they expect to have the problem with the visas solved — like with Canada.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Ah, okay. Well, we’re going to work on that problem.
I want to just thank the Prime Minister of Bulgaria for being here. It’s an honor to have you at the White House, in the Oval Office. We have meetings coming up in a little while. You have your representatives. I have my representatives. And I think we’re going to have very productive meetings.
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Chopper pressers are the best pressers. Earlier today President Trump delivered impromptu remarks to the media as he departed the White House traveling to Austin, Texas.
The President Trump is traveling to Austin, Texas to tour the Apple Manufacturing Plant. Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Ambassador Gordon Sondland testifies before the House Intel Committee. [Video below, Transcript Added]

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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: So, thank you very much. We’re going to Austin, Texas. Apple is opening up a fantastic facility. They’re spending a tremendous amount of money. And I’ve been asking Tim Cook from the day I got elected — from the campaign, I’ve been asking Tim Cook to, if they would, we want to see Apple build here; that way, you have no tariffs. There’s no tariffs. When companies come to our country and they build, there’s no tariffs.
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Earlier today President Trump held a cabinet meeting while allowing a press availability for comments to media. [Video and Transcript Below]

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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Well, I want to start by saying that, Rick, you’ve been very special. You’re my friend. You’ve been an incredible representative of this country and this administration. What you’ve done on energy is unsurpassed. I don’t know if anybody has done it better. And you have a fabulous man, at your recommendation, following you up.
SECRETARY PERRY: Indeed.
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President Trump held an impromptu presser prior to departing JBA for Alabama.  This is one of those mini-pressers that reveals important aspects to the *direction* of the U.S-China trade discussion from the POTUS perspective.  The financial pundits always miss these little tell-tale remarks.  President Trump is managing the trade and economic program at a granular level; this is his priority… every little part of it, he is directing.
President Trump notes the value of the tariff strategy, and infers (not so subtle) that no deal is preferred within his ongoing plan: “you’ll see what I’m going to be doing.”  This is what the financial pundits ignore. President Trump has gamed this out, he’s stringing the process slowly to keep boosting the stock market…. but his goal does not include a deal.
[Video and Transcript below]

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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: I look forward to seeing a lot of things. But on Monday, in particular, our stock market has just broken another record, as you see. Our economy is doing phenomenally well. Our jobs numbers just broke yet another record. They’re higher than ever before. Our country is doing better than it’s ever done. Our military is rebuilt. It was a mess when I took over.

And a lot of good things are happening, and now I’m going to watch Alabama-LSU, and that’ll be a lot of fun. So, we look forward to it.

Do you have a question? Go ahead.

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President Trump delivers remarks departing the White House for a trip to Tuscaloosa, AL, to attend the Louisiana State University Tigers vs. Alabama Crimson Tide Football Game. [Video and transcript below]

[Transcript] “So the stock market hit an all-time high yesterday. The country is doing really well. The witch hunt continues. A lot of witch hunt continues. The Republicans have never been so united, and I think the people of our country have never been so united.

We’re going Alabama. We’re going to watch the Alabama game versus LSU, two great teams. I think it’s going to be very interesting, and on Monday we have a very big parade in New York, so that’ll be good. Have a good time.

This is the strongest economy we’ve ever had, number one.  Thank You.”

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Earlier today President Trump held an extensive chopper presser with the White House press pool on a variety of topics.  Here is the REAL NEWS transcript:
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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: I just told them, “I’ve got to come over and see the fake news.” Let’s go. What do you have, John?

Q Mr. President, what do you think of the testimony of the deposition that has been released so far? And are you concerned about public hearings next week?

THE PRESIDENT: I’m not concerned about anything. The testimony has all been fine. I mean, for the most part, I’ve never even heard of these people. I have no idea who they are. They’re some very fine people; you have some Never-Trumpers. It seems that nobody has any firsthand knowledge. There is no firsthand knowledge. And all that matters is one thing: the transcript. And the transcript is perfect.

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