White House Conducts Press Briefing, Sept. 11
In response to the attacks we are memorializing today, the
The men and women, in responding to these storms, embody the spirit under which
From the firefighters and police officers who rushed into burning buildings on 9/11 to the first responders on the ground in
I'd like to bring up
In addition, I would note that
As I said the other day, we don't have any current, active threats against the homeland to our knowledge, and that's a good news story for today.
Let me move into a quick thought. Before I do it though, Sarah noted that we created the
And so we've marshaled our resources and we've organized them in a way to confront the threat of terrorism, but also to organize ourselves in a way that would allow us to respond to any event, from a manmade hazard to an unfortunate terrorist attack, but also to a hurricane.
So let me see if I can today talk to you about what we've done. I believe Harvey, as I said earlier, was the best integrated, unified, joint federal, local, state response effort that our country has seen in its history. I continue to stand by that. We've got roughly 700,000 registrants now for individual assistance in the greater
With respect to Hurricane Irma, as you now know, it's a tropical depression. That does not mean it's not a dangerous storm. As you'll see from reporting,
So as that flooding is ongoing, we have lifesaving, life-sustaining operations underway, and we are prayerful that there are not people right now trapped by floodwaters.
The President spoke this morning to the Governor of the
So if I could on that, I'll speak to it later. But the mobilization of our military in response to the storms in
So we have the largest flotilla operation in our nation's history to help not only the people of
With respect to
And then
And then if I can come back to 9/11, I think the lesson we learned that day, among others, was that not only does evil exist but good people taking action can confront that. And what I've been reinsured -- assured and reassured about over the last 24 hours is how many good people are taking action. So that's kind of my lesson for today.
I'd like to take questions now.
John.
Q Tom, in the immediate aftermath of Harvey, the federal response priority was to rescue people who were trapped by the enormous flooding. In the state of
But what you'll see in
We are worried about flooding, housing, debris, and power restoration. And power restoration is also a function of access to fuel -- refined fuel. So as you'll see the next days and week play out, we will have to clear debris from roadways so that people can gain reentry. Right now though, the message is not to rush reentry. There are still dangerous conditions, downed electric lines, flood conditions, problems that would be compounded by your reentry.
And so listen to your local officials, not only about evacuation but then about when and how to stagger your reentry, for a reason. There's a life safety reason, a public safety reason.
here's our priority set. Eventually we'll move into issues about recovery and insurance and so forth.
Q Tom, what are you doing on the fuel front?
And so what we'll do is clear those pathways, assess those three ports where those tankers dock, make sure they're not damaged, and we'll get things back up and running.
Q Tom -- yes, hi. Do we have any agreements in place with the private sector to contribute to the both response and recovery -- talking about
But secondly, it is our absolutely baseline doctrine nowadays in the emergency management community that we would rather reopen those stores and continue providing food, water, and temporary shelter to people. It's just not within their regular course of operating business. It's not routine, and it's not something that we can easily sustain. So it's healthier, better, faster for us to reopen those stores as fast as possible. Thanks for that question.
Q Mr. Bossert, the previous administration saw a connection between climate change and homeland security in that the frequency and intensity of powerful storms, like Harvey and Irma, could pose a problem for future administrations. You could have a
I will tell you that we continue to take seriously the climate change -- not the cause of it, but the things that we observe. And so there's rising flood waters -- I think one inch every 10 years in
And that has to do with engineering analysis and changing conditions along eroding shorelines, but also in inland water and flood control projects.
Q And just to follow up on that, when you see three Category 4 hurricanes all on the same map at the same time, does the thought occur to you, "Geez, you know, maybe there is something to this climate change thing and its connection to powerful hurricanes"? Or do you just separate the two and say, "Boy, these are a lot of big hurricanes coming our way"?
Sir.
We'll ask for a third, perhaps fourth supplemental appropriation for the purpose of rebuilding. We'll do it smartly, to the previous question -- but in terms of pressure on the budget, this is a disaster-relief-fund issue. It's funded a little bit differently, and I have every belief that this President will end up with proposals as he's started this administration with that will lead to a balanced budget.
But to get too far into how that works and the politics is way outside my lane, and I'll --
Q Just to follow up, at any point in time as you're taking a look at this issue, is there any chance that
You'll see, though, over a longer span of time even the flood insurance budget is red and black, red and black again based on claims and based on premiums. So we'll analyze it in that fashion, but I don't have any prediction for you on that.
Ma'am, in the middle.
Q Tom, I asked you two weeks ago about Harvey, and you said -- I asked you about housing. And I wanted to know if you had an update on the issues of housing, since now we've had Harvey and now Irma and what else is coming along the way. Can you give us an update as to locating housing for those who've been displaced?
And there's four or five solutions to the housing problems in
In some cases,
The third option, of course, is just distance. So there's available rental stock, but you have to draw a larger circumference as people move away from their homes and into rental stock available farther away. So we have some analysis done on the available rental stock and the available manufactured housing stock. We can get that to you after the podium brief here.
In
Q Will it be kind of like the same model?
And so what we'll do there is assess whether those are the right models or whether we have to apply some different creative solutions. If we do, we have the authorities and we have the budget to do so, and we'll make sure people are taken care of.
Q nd during the Bush years, there was a very big concern about the mobile homes -- and then they wound up having issues with formaldehyde. Is that all cleared up, all of that concern before? There was a big concern about mobile home communities just being in place after Katrina. Is that kind of out of the mindset now? Or is it still part of the mindset?
What we do as a government is purchase available manufactured housing. We don't make it, and we purchase it off the open market. I think the open market has improved their building practices, and I think that we've improved through that experience in knowing who to buy from and who not to buy from.
I also understand that problems of ambient air quality continue to persist in our everyday lives, so I don't know how much formaldehyde is in this room right now, but I do know that formaldehyde is a carcinogen at any level. (Laughter.) The point here is that we take it very seriously, and we'll make sure we message very seriously the importance of, basically, ventilation.
But to my knowledge, we buy off of a better market now, and we provide that solution in a more tailored and responsible manner.
If I could maybe come up front.
Q Tom, a couple of questions about the conditions in
Q It's 5 million households and businesses, so it's a lot more people.
The idea here is, as I said earlier, we all have a joint role in this.
Yesterday what we saw was not just the reports of, but the actual evidence of -- this will be the largest ever mobilization of line restoration workers in this country. Period. End of story. They were already mobilized yesterday. They were at the
And so in
So it is a -- literally -- joint effort from federal clearing, to public and private partnerships, to line restoration efforts that are partnered in the for-profit and regulated world all the way through to the individual homeowner. So that's how that process works.
Q What's your assessment of how long that's going to take? How long are these people going to be in the dark?
Now, I don't want to cause any panic in
Sir.
Q Thank you, Tom. Is preventing price gouging in the state of
So "both" is the answer, but I can tell you that neither officials -- the Attorney General of
Sir.
Q You raise the possibility of a third and fourth supplemental for disaster relief. Can you tell us how much money the administration wants included in the supplementals? And are you going to put language raising the cap for flood insurance in that legislation as well?
If we got that wrong, then we'd go for another if necessary. It's not necessarily wrong, but if we estimate a world and find actuals don't meet those estimates, then we'll go up and rectify.
With respect to flood insurance, we'll see how many claims come in. But the flood insurance program had
Sir.
Q I was hoping you could drill down a bit more on the efforts to evacuate Americans in the
Now, control expectations. You're on an island where we have to transport commodities -- food and water -- where we have a long road ahead of us to bring electric power back online. But we've assembled two of the most powerful naval relief flotillas in recent memory, a total of nine large ships. I'm going to just cut right to the Kearsarge,
And so to the extent that I can assess it, I'm pretty proud of that. To the extent that it meets the need, I'm going to hope it does because we're saving hundreds if not thousands of people off of these islands at this point collectively. And so if the burn rate is not fast enough, I would be surprised because we're mobilizing ourselves in ways that we've never mobilized before.
And
Sir.
Q Quick question on timing tomorrow. With so many people who evacuated from the Keys and given the level of destruction there, any time estimate on when people might be able to return to the Keys?
That
And I would say that for the people that choose to stay, they had every warning to leave, we hope that they took that warning. And those that didn't, we're going to get back down there as soon as we humanly can. And right now we don't know.
We had three or four overflights today. I talked to the
I see, Sarah. I'm going to actually end on that, if I could -- and end where I started. Today is the day of solemnity and remembrance for 9/11. It is why I got into this business, and it's why I believe our government is now organized for the level of response that we've seen. It just goes to kind of show what we've got if we want to bring ourselves together in helping our fellow humans. Under good leadership from
Please, for the people in
Thank you all very much.
Finally, before I take your questions, several of you have asked about the
"
And with that, I'll take your questions.
Jeff.
Q Sarah, two questions. One, do you have a reaction to
And secondly, if you could look forward to tomorrow a little bit and the President's meeting with the Malaysian Prime Minister, what do you expect to achieve during that meeting? And will the President address or avoid the issue of the
I think the President has been very clear about his position on that front. He's very pleased with the new Director and has full confidence in him to fully restore and lead the FBI.
In terms of
Those are certainly, I think, some of the priorities of tomorrow's meeting, but I'm not going to get ahead much further than that on any conversation that may take place.
Q (Inaudible) corruption probe?
Q Thanks, Sarah. I also have a question on
First of all, does the President agree with that obvious characterization of McConnell and Ryan?
We're focused on moving things forward, and certainly that's the goal and the priority of the administration.
Q So on that note, would he like to see -- given his past criticisms of
John.
Q Sarah, just to follow up on Bannon's comments, he actually went and said all that about McConnell and Ryan, but also said that they were -- they wanted to nullify the 2016 election results. So just a simple yes or no question, does the President agree with that assessment?
Q Is he talking to Stave Bannon? Does he still seek his counsel on the outside?
Q On
Q Yes, good topic. Did the President happen to watch --
Q You might be right about that. Did the President happen to watch the interview? Any reaction? Did you happen to watch the interview on 60 Minutes? And --
Q And what was your reaction to it? As a former colleague of yours -- he worked here at the
Francesca.
Q Why ruin a good thing, Sarah?
Q Staying on the topic of
Q Last week,
Q In his 60 Minutes interview,
John.
Q On a different topic --
Q In recent weeks --
Q In just a matter of weeks, two storms that have been categorized as "once in 500 years" or even longer -- major events -- have hit
Hallie.
Q Two questions. To follow up on John's question a little bit here, and since you said you do speak for the administration, can you clarify whether the President believes human activity contributes to climate change?
Q But I'm asking you if that has changed given these storms?
Q So my second question is actually on something that happened back on
Q What's taking so long? You know, this is a President who likes to snap his fingers --
Q I was going to ask about
Q He and Cohn are going up to the
John.
Q Another one on
THE PRESIDENT: The President has confidence in Secretary Mnuchin and is glad that he is part of the effort, working with
John.
Q Just to drill down a little bit on what you said a moment ago regarding
Jen.
Q Two questions, one of the
Q (Inaudible) he would support --
Q And then on Americans' personal data security after the
Q Was the President disappointed by
Q And secondly, did
As I mentioned when we started, the governor of
The press team will be here, and we're happy to answer any questions, particularly if you have anything beyond
Thanks, guys.
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