It was a major focus of today's
White House briefing with
Press Secretary Sarah Sanders.
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS,
White House Press Secretary:
The president and the
entire administration
take domestic violence
very seriously and
believe all allegations
need to be investigated
thoroughly.
Above all, the president
supports victims of domestic
violence and believes everyone
should be treated fairly
and with due process.
QUESTION: Why haven't we heard
the president say exactly what
you just said right there,
that he takes domestic
violence very seriously?
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS: I spoke
with the president, and those
are actually directly his words
that he gave me earlier today.
QUESTION: But why
hasn't he said that?
He had the opportunity.
He's been active on Twitter.
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS:
It's my job to speak on
behalf of the president.
I spoke to him, and he relayed
that message directly to me,
and I'm relaying it directly
to you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And our Yamiche
Alcindor joins me now for more.
So, Yamiche, what the White
House wanted to talk about today
was the budget and something
else, and we will get
to that in a minute.
But this lingering story
is still hanging out
there, reporters asking,
how did the president,
how did the White
House handle this?
Why is this still going on?
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Well, this
was, as you know, supposed
to be infrastructure week.
This is the White House's second
try at infrastructure week and
each time it's been overshadowed
by this scandal.
We're talking about it still
largely because President
Trump tweeted about it over the
weekend.
He didn't name Rob Porter,
the other aide that resigned
because of domestic violence
allegations, but he said that
people's lives were being
destroyed and that they needed
due process.
Because of that tweet
and because of the fact
nobody really knows
who knew what when at
the White House, this has
been an issue the White House
is continuing to deal with.
John Kelly, who is the chief of
staff to President Trump, has
said as soon as he heard about
the allegations, that 40
minutes later Rob Porter
was out of the job.
But Sarah Sanders today from
the podium said that it was
actually 24 hours later that Rob
Porter resigned or terminated.
And even that detail
is still murky.
So there is the idea this
President Trump continues to
likely -- come to the defense
of men who are allegedly
domestically violating people.
And you have this idea that
Sarah Sanders said herself
that the president dictated a
statement to her in support
of domestic violence victims.
But the president, who of course
has no qualms ever using his
Twitter account to say whatever
is on his mind, has
not spoken publicly in
support of the women here.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And people
were pointing to a series of
these statements over the last
several years where he's
spoken out in more sympathy for
the people have been accused
of abuse.
So, Yamiche, let's talk about
the other things going on
at the White House today.
The president did roll out --
they did roll out their budget
for the coming fiscal year.
Just give us the highlights.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Some of the
highlights are that this is a
budget that's $4.4 trillion.
That's 10 percent more than
Republicans spent in -- or
wanted to spend in 2017.
The other thing that's happening
here is that they're asking for
$23 billion in border security.
That includes
money for the wall.
Of course, that's the wall on
the border of Mexico -- then
you have -- $28 billion, sorry.
Then you have $13 billion for
opioid treatment services.
That's a critical step since
President Trump has declared
a public health crisis about
this issue in October.
And then you have $200
billion for infrastructure
structure over 10 years.
So, then you have 17 --
I'm sorry -- $716 billion
for military spending.
The other thing that's
happening here is that it
eliminates 62 agencies,
including the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting.
It eliminates a lot of
entitlement programs,
which is something
that Republicans wanted
to get rid of.
They said 64 agencies.
Sorry about that.
Then they have $554 billion
are getting cut from Medicaid;
$250 billion are getting cut
from Medicaid; $214 billion
is being cut from the SNAP
program, which of course used to
be known as the
food stamp program.
The other thing that's really
being cut is here the EPA.
It's going to be
losing $2.8 billion.
That's a lot of money.
Most of those programs
are to eliminate
climate change programs.
So, that's a big deal, because
a lot of people are saying
that this is an administration
that has been hostile to
climate change issues.
And then the last thing that
it does is that it adds $984
billion to the deficit in 2018
- - in 2019, which is a huge,
huge change for Republicans
who have really been wanting to
balance the budget.
JUDY WOODRUFF: It's been noted
that they don't even make a
pretense of getting to balance,
of worrying about deficits.
So, the last thing,
just quickly, of course,
is infrastructure.
This has been long awaited
and the White House did
finally push out their plan.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: The
White House pushed
out their plan today.
And it's a plan -- it's an
issue, I should say, that the
White House should be able to
get some bipartisan support on.
The president, when he talked
about infrastructure, it
was a very popular thing.
Bernie Sanders, when I
was on the campaign trail
with him, also talked
about infrastructure.
But the way that President
Trump is talking about
the infrastructure
plan is essentially
saying that states and local
governments are going to be
the ones bearing the brunt and
paying for the most of it.
The federal government
would spend something
like $200 billion, but
that's a small fraction
of what they want to spend.
And today Senator Chuck Schumer
came out and basically said
that there are going to be
Trump tolls all across the
country, saying that for
President Trump to get this plan
passed, it's going to have
to turn into tolls and
all sorts of fees being
passed on to different
Americans.
Republicans, on the other hand,
some of them have been saying
they praised this program.
And some of them, of
course, have been saying
that they want more
explanation, because they're
very worried about the fact that
they're adding to the deficit.
JUDY WOODRUFF: A lot of
discussion still about
how this is paid for,
in very early stages.
Yamiche Alcindor,
so much going on.
Thank you.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Thanks.