President Donald Trump is on a working vacation, but he surprised reporters in the White House press pool by taking multiple questions on two occasions.
The president brought the White House press pool onto his golf course in New Jersey before a security briefing with his advisers and after his briefing.
“I think we’re making tremendous headway,” Trump said, revealing that he and his staff would talk about North Korea and Venezuela.
“Any questions?” he volunteered.
The president spent eight minutes speaking with the press before the meeting and more than 20 minutes after the meeting.
He answered over 30 questions about several topics, including his handling of the North Korea problem, the opioid crisis, his relationship with Sen. Mitch McConnell, the war in Afghanistan, the Russia investigation, his decision to ban transgenders from the military, and his relationship with Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Trump sat in the room with Vice President Mike Pence; his National Security adviser, H.R. McMaster; CIA Director Mike Pompeo; Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert; his new chief of staff, John Kelly; and his communications adviser, Hope Hicks.
The president appeared rested, in command, and eager to share news about his presidency with the same “fake news” media he spent most of his vacation trashing on Twitter.
After about ten minutes of taking questions, press secretary Sarah Sanders held up a sheet of paper telling reporters they only had one more question, but Trump kept talking.
When asked about intelligence reports about North Korea, Trump joked with reporters about leaks.
“You’ll probably find out about it before anybody else, right?” he asked as reporters laughed.
“We got to stop the leaks,” he continued.
Trump specified two kinds of leaks — the serious leaks from national security and intelligence institutions and then the “little inner-White House leaks.”
“Then you have the leaks where people want to love me, and they’re all fighting for love,” Trump said as the press laughed. “Those are not very important, but certainly, we don’t like them. Those are little inner-White House leaks. They’re not very important. But, actually, I’m somewhat honored by them.”
He stressed that the more important intelligence leaks were the ones he wanted to stop.
“We have to stop them for the security and the national security of our country,” he said.
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