BREAKING NEWS: JD Vance, Pete Hegseth, And Tulsi Gabbard Hold Press Briefing At U.S.-Mexico Border

all right well uh good afternoon everybody and uh I appreciate you being here it's it's great to be here it's great to talk to some of the incredible people that we have uh both at the local level the Texas state level and also of course our federal border patrol who are doing so many good things to keep us safe and I I have some some bad news and some some good news and the bad news is that because of what Joe Biden did at the southern border for four years we had record increases in migrant

crime in Fittin all deaths and in just floods and floods of people who shouldn't be in our country who came into the United States of America we also have a number of of ways in which the cartels became more advanced better War Fighters because Joe Biden opened up the American southern border and allowed the cartels to turn it into their Playground now that's the bad news the good news is as president Trump said last night at the State of the Union it turns out we didn't need new laws we didn't need fancy legislation we just

needed a new president of the United States and thank God that's exactly what we have and I will say that the most heartening message that I take away from my visit here at the at the Texas border is the number of border patrol agents who have come up to me and said thank you or said because of this we've cut the number of border crossings from 1,500 a day to 30 a day or the people who who have come up and said we've seen a reduction in 85% of the number of people who are dying

at the American southern border and every single day that we continue to keep this border safe that means less migrant crime that means less fentol coming into our communities that means more Safety and Security for the people of the United States of America and of course we know the Border problem the Border crisis under Biden's Administration was a national crisis but it acutely affected the communities right here and I've already heard heartbreaking stories of people who are still picking up the pieces local Mayors who are still do dealing with the budgetary consequences of what the

Joe Biden Administration allowed to happen at the American southern border and that too is something that President Trump is going to help address help fix and help solve now I I wanted to bring um secretary heith and director gabard at dni down here because one I obviously enjoy their company and it's good to have them down there down here with me looking around today but uh unfortunately we know that because of what's happened the Border crisis has become a matter of National Intelligence and it's also become something that requires the Department of Defense to engage

with I was talking with Paul perz earlier the the the the Drone technology that the cartels are using requires unfortunately a military response and Military Support so it was important for secretary heg to see what's going on because we know that the millions and millions of people who were LED in over the last four years many of them are connected to foreign terrorists it's important for our leader of National Intelligence to get a sense of what's here on the ground so before we take questions from the press and all of us are are willing to

take questions I want to give secretary Heth and then director gabard an opportunity to say a few words themselves Mr secretary well Mr Vice President thank you very much for inviting us uh it's great to be here with you with the director with our fellow friends in civilian clothes and in other shades of green this is a demonstration of a true partnership on the southern border as president Trump has made clear from on the campaign Trail and from day one and last night border security is National Security and from the defense department we've watched for

a couple of decades other people's borders being secured while ours was open for an invasion of drugs and of violence and of chaos for American communities that stops under President Trump and the defense department has assets that we can bring to Bear uh not just troops not just surveillance not just equipment uh but actual planning and capabilities that enhance what border patrol is already doing which is why it's been incredible to hear from our partners about what we've been able to allow them to do facilitate them and we've seen it in the numbers 98% drop

in Crossings on the southern border we're not yet at 100% operational control but we are on our way because that is the Mandate that the president has given up so given us so more resources are coming to this border we are dedicated to securing it that's the reason for our trip and our partnership and I want to thank all the men and women who've been doing it recently in uniform who have been doing it a long time right here have dedicated their lives to securing the American people and at the defense department we are committed

to continuing to being a big part of it so Mr Vice President thanks for having us absolutely man you great now Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbert Tulsi thank you Mr vice president for your leadership in uh bringing the country's attention to what has been happening here at the border and the significant change that has already occurred under the short time that President Trump has been in office really what you're seeing here today and what you'll continue to see is a unified effort across president Trump's National Security team the Department of Homeland Security towards our

mission which is to ensure a safe and prosperous Society for Americans uh as Director of National Intelligence there are a number of areas where we are focused uh the president talked about in his speech over 21 million people have come across our borders illegally under Joe Biden's Administration there are many of them that we don't know who they are they have not been vetted we don't know where they are I'll give you one quick example of one of the problems that we are getting after uh from Central Asia there were over 4,000 people who came

across our borders using an Isis Affiliated Network our national uh counterterrorism Center went through and identified those individuals there were hundreds of them uh who were either known terrorists or associated with known terrorists that information was provided to the Biden Administration you may remember in some of the news a little over hundred of those people were arrested in 2024 of those who were arrested only eight were either deported or remained in custody only eight the rest of them were released back into our country where are they what are they doing what may they be plotting

this is just the beginning there are many many areas that we need uh to stay very focused on working with Department of Homeland Security working with the FBI to ensure that we're keeping the American people safe our counterterrorism Center is working on making sure that we have that single source for vetting so that we can figure out who is actually in our country and identify those who pose a threat uh and get removed the president's designation of the the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations falls directly into this especially as we're seeing some of the tactics

that these cartels are using reflect some of the tactics that we've seen used by islamist terrorists in countries that many of us have served in uh overseas our mission is very clear uh our objective is to keep the American people safe I'm grateful to be a part of this team that President Trump has assembled to accomplish that mission thank you great so before I take questions let me just say two final things first of all the reason why we've seen as Pete said a 98% reduction of border crossings the reason why this particular site has

gone from over 1,500 Crossings per day to 30 Crossings per day is because president Trump has empowered and in fact demanded that his whole government take the the task of border control seriously and that's exactly what we're doing and of course and this leads to my my my final point before we take questions it is impos possible to do without the men and women on the ground who are actually doing the hard work they just want to be empowered to do their jobs president Trump has made that possible so from the bottom of my heart

and for a Grateful Nation to every person I've met here today thank you for working hard on the American people's business it's been an honor to be with you it's been an honor to see what you do and we're going to keep on supporting you over the next four years Congressman Gonzalez thank you for being here and thank you for your leadership and now we'll take some questions from reporters sir so as you guys have been exemplifying for today that border crossings are down um a lot of attention has been turned to the interior since

obviously there's going a lot of legal immigrants what is in your opinion the biggest obstacle to actually carrying out Trump president Trump's Mass deportations even though yes like apprehensions and arrests and deportations have gone up in his first month but a lot of people are expecting a a bigger capacity for deportation so what's what's so let me say a few things about that so first of all Rome wasn't built in a day and we have seen pretty significant increases in deportations and apprehensions and arrests but we have to remember that President Biden gutted the entire

immigration enforcement regime of this country we are trying to rebuild so that we actually Empower people to enforce the immigration laws of the American people it is common sense it's what the American people want us to do there are a couple of other things that we're working on and I I don't want to get ahead of any public announcements but you know one of the ways that we wanted to to make sure we're enforcing our border is that we make it easier for people who are here illegally to go back home of their own accord

we don't want to have to go around and arrest every person but we will enforce the American people's immigration laws if you're here illegally the message from our Administration is you should go back home and if you want to come to the United States apply through the proper channels that's an important thing that we're doing and the final thing is this costs money one of the most important parts of the president's reconciliation priorities is of course tax reform on the one hand and on the other hand making sure that we get proper resources so that

we can pay for the flights and we can pay for the detention centers and we can pay for all the components necessary to ensure that we're REM migrating illegal immigrants back to their country of origin I guarantee it is a part of the president's priorities we'll keep on working on it we've made a lot of progress but we're going to keep on working on it over the remainder of the president's term yeah goe Mr Vice President uh I want to ask you about border wall and tariffs but first on the the border wall how do

you and the president could you see your outlet by the way when you guys ask questions yeah Reagan Reese Daily Caller thank you uh how do you and the president define success this term with the border wall and how much of the Southern border wall needs to be walled off before Trump leaves office well look I I think the president's hope is that by the end of the term we build the entire border wall and of course that's the physical structure of the border wall itself but we even heard today there are so many good

technological tools so many great AR artificial intelligence enabled technologies that allow us for example you you know a camera not not a person but a camera picks up somebody two miles away who's about to come across the southern border maybe it's it it's it's livestock right maybe it's it's a you know a critter in the desert maybe it's a human being with a weapon on their back we're using artificial intelligence to make us better at the job of Border enforcement but we've got to make sure that technology is deployed across the entire American southern border

we're going to do it as much as we can as as broadly as we can because that's how we're going to protect the American people's security last time they were paused because they deployed 10,000 troops to the Border what can they do this time to make the tariffs go away well what the president has said is we need a sustain commitment from the government of Mexico to take the job of border security seriously fental is the single largest cause of death among Young Americans and we know that a substantial portion of it is you know

the the the precursors are made in China they come to Mexico they're manufactured in Mexico and brought across the border by the Mexican drug cartels we want to see fewer Americans dying of these terrible fentol overdoses when we're going to apply as much leverage as possible to The Mexican government as possible you in some ways look uh the president obviously cares deeply about the American people he serves the American people first I actually think he's doing a huge favor to the people of Mexico because if they don't get control of these cartels the people of

Mexico are going to wake up in a narco state where the cartels have more power than their own government president Trump is trying to help the Mexican Government needs to take this issue of immigration enforcement seriously in the in the back yeah Mr Vice President Ali Bradley news Nation so since the designation of the cartels as terrorist does that give the United States the green light to go into Mexico and to strike them there I mean right now obviously they've struck in the huis in Yemen so why not when we've seen crossb violence go after

them in Mexico and then my second question is about a designation I'll follow up on these go and ask the second question why isn't the Warz linia cartel designated when it's in one of the most deadliest places on the planet Warz has been designated as one of the deadliest cities it's right across from El Paso we've talked to community leaders they say we know Wars cartel is operating in the US and so are their Affiliates we don't even want to talk talk about it out loud though because then we'll put a Target on our back

they're scared border patrol even thought they were designated but they're not the state department didn't tell me why so on that we're looking at additional organizations obviously this is the the the determination of whether to determine a particular organization a terrorist organization is something that we we consult with our leaders of the Department of Defense we also consult with our friends and other governments uh we we we maintain the optionality to designate further organizations terrorist organizations if we feel that we need to in order to protect the American people and I think president Trump has

made it very clear he's not going to be shy about designating some of these cartel organizations as terrorists if he thinks he has to to protect the American people uh your your your first question was about American forces to strike oh sorry yeah so look I'm not going to make any announcements about any invasions of Mexico here today the president has a megaphone and of course he'll speak to the these issues as he feels necessary but what designating cartel organizations allows us to do is deploy the full resources of the United States military to engage

in serious border enforcement of course the president is going to make the determination about how we deploy those forces but our hope here our hope is that Mexico takes this job seriously we don't want to have negative relationships with the Mexican Government we want the Mexican Government to help itself but also in the process to help the American people by taking these organizations seriously it's going to destabilize the entire country of Mexico the entire government if they don't take it more seriously we're hopeful that they will and if they don't then of course we'll figure

out what to do from there so I just you just mentioned something about invasion of Mexico is there any talk or any thoughts about actually US military forces going into Mexico no next question uh on on tariffs are any other Industries other than the automotive reaching out to you guys to carve out special deals um and did the automotive industry know this was coming before today well a number of Industries have reached out to us to ask us for um exceptions to the tariffs but I think the president's been very clear here that he wants

the tariffs to apply broadly he doesn't want to have 500 different Industries getting 500 different car outs and the way to avoid application of the tariffs is to have your factory and have your facility in the United States of America that is the way invest in America that is how you will avoid being penalized by these tariffs sir president case at 12 John Paul baras you've been talking about the improvements that your Administration has done here with the crossings can you talk about the decline prior to president Trump taking office under the Biden Administration well

I I think like like so many Americans apparently members of the Mexican drug cartel figured out out in November and December after the election that Joe Biden was asleep at the wheel and they had to be dealing with the then president-elect and now president I if you look at what drove the declines before the inauguration people will tell you they knew that Donald Trump was coming back into office they knew he was going to take border enforcement seriously and so they were already getting ahead of actually cutting down those illegal Crossing numbers we saw that

from the Mexican Government of course because we were threatening some economic sanctions against them but we also saw it from the cels themselves and even today because of course it doesn't you know it takes a little time uh to get from the deepest parts of Central America to the American southern border what we often find is that there are there are massive numbers of illegal immigrants who have already started to make the Trek and have decided you know what because Donald Trump's president we're going to go back home we heard today about a Honduran group

of migrants who decided they're just going to go back home because they recognize that under Donald Trump's leadership we take border enforcement seriously thank you all take care