PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much. Does anybody have any questions? (Laughter.) I’m shocked.

Jon, go ahead.

Q Mr. President, thank you very much.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you.

Q Mr. President, I’d like to get your reaction to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s decision to appoint a special counsel to investigate the Russian interference in the campaign. Was this the right move, or is this part of a “witch hunt”?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I respect the move, but the entire thing has been a witch hunt. And there is no collusion between certainly myself and my campaign, but I can always speak for myself -- and the Russians, zero.

I think it divides the country. I think we have a very divided country because of that and many other things. So I can tell you that we want to bring this great country of ours together, Jon. And I will also say very strongly, we’ve had tremendous success. You look at our job numbers, you look at what’s going on at the border, as we discussed before; if you look at what will be happening -- you’re going to see some incredible numbers with respect to the success of General Mattis and others with the ISIS situation. The numbers are staggering, how successful they’ve been, the military has been.

Tomorrow, as you know, I’m going to Saudi Arabia, going to Israel. I’m going to Rome. And we have the G7. We have a lot of great things going on.

So I hate to see anything that divides. I’m fine with whatever people want to do, but we have to get back to running this country really, really well. We’ve made tremendous progress in the last 100-some-odd days. Tremendous progress. And you see job numbers, you see all of the production that's starting. Plants starting to open again. Haven’t been open in years. I'm very proud of it. That's what I want to be focused on. Because, believe me, there's no collusion. Russia is fine. But whether it's Russia or anybody else, my total priority, believe me, is the United States of America.

So, thank you very much.

Q (As interpreted.) President Trump, President Santos, can we say that today we are setting a new roadmap in the relationship between Colombia and the United States? Which are the concrete commitments? You were talking about the post-conflict time. Many funds are needed for that.

And on the issue of Venezuela, President Trump, many deaths, human rights violations. There's plenty to be done.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, that's true. Venezuela has a very, very serious problem. We haven’t really seen a problem like that, I would say, Mr. President, in decades, in terms of the kind of violence that we're witnessing. The President was telling me -- and I knew -- that Venezuela was a very, very wealthy country, just about the wealthiest in your neck of the woods, and had tremendous strengths in so many different ways. And now it's poverty-stricken. People don’t have enough to eat. People have no food. There's great violence. And we will do whatever is necessary -- and we'll work together to do whatever is necessary -- to help with fixing that. And I'm really talking on a humanitarian level.

When you look at the oil reserves that they have, when you look at the potential wealth that Venezuela has, you sort of have to wonder, why is that happening? How is that possible? But it's been unbelievably poorly run for a long period of time. And hopefully that will change, and they can use those assets for the good and to take care of their people. Because right now what's happening is, really, a disgrace to humanity.

And, Jon, I think you also had a question for the President, if you'd like to.

Q Does he have another one?

PRESIDENT SANTOS: His question about the commitment. (As interpreted.) The commitment on President Trump's side and his administration was shown through the approval of the budget that, for Colombia, means an increase in the support to fund the post-conflict era. Last night we received from a very important organization, The Atlantic Council, a report, which includes both parties presided by a Republican senator and a Democrat senator with a roadmap recommending the governments of the United States and Colombia to follow.

This morning, we established this entrepreneurship council, United States-Colombia, so that the private sector can also have a voice in that roadmap. This means we are working together on every front that can be convenient for both countries. But we'll continue to work together. We have ratified that commitment today, during our conversation.

And as I said before, we have the best of relations with the United States. We are strategic allies in the region, and we will continue to be so.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. President Santos, to you, you heard President Trump say that critical to stopping the flow of drugs into the United States will be the wall that he wants to build on the Mexican border. Do you agree with him? Would that wall be a step -- a positive step and a step towards reducing the flow of drugs across the border?

PRESIDENT SANTOS: I believe that the best way to fight the drug trafficking is by collaborating. This is not a problem of Colombia only or a problem of the United States only. It's a world problem. And we have to all work together. We declared the war on drugs 40 years ago. The world declared the war on drugs. And it's a war that has not been won. So we must be more effective and more efficient.

Now, we are doing a very big effort, because of the peace process, to have a new strategy -- carrot and stick. Stick, by forced eradication. We have already eradicated, this year only, 15,000 hectares, which is the whole volume that we eradicated last year. And we're starting to eradicate -- to substitute voluntarily, through a program where the peasants -- and we have 80,000 families already in the program -- that they are going to substitute for legal crops. And this is the first time that this could be done because of the peace. Before, the conflict did not allow us to build roads and to give these peasants an alternative. Now we have. So we have to take advantage of this opportunity and continue reducing the production of coca.

In the meantime, we will work together, the U.S. and Colombia, with other countries -- Central America -- to fight the other links of the chain, the intermediaries. We have destroyed 22,000 laboratories in the Colombian jungles, seizing cocaine in transit. We have seized record amount of tons last year, and this year we're doing even better than last year.

So by working together we can be much more effective, and that is the commitment we just made or ratified this afternoon.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: And that was a long and very diplomatic answer to your question. I will say it a little bit shorter: Walls work. Just ask Israel. They work. Believe me, they work. And we have no choice.

Peter Baker. Yes.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. In the light of a very busy news week, a lot of people would like to get to the bottom of a couple of things, give you a chance to go on record here. Did you at any time urge former FBI Director James Comey in any way, shape, or form to close or to back down the investigation into Michael Flynn?

And also as you look back --

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No. No. Next question.

Q Next question. As you look back over the past six months or year, have you had any recollection where you've wondered if anything you have done has been something that might be worthy of criminal charges in these investigations or impeachment, as some on the left are implying?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I think it’s totally ridiculous. Everybody thinks so. And again, we have to get back to working our country properly so that we can take care of the problems that we have. We have plenty of problems. We've done a fantastic job. We have a tremendous group of people. Millions and millions of people out there that are looking at what you had just said, and said, "What are they doing?"

Director Comey was very unpopular with most people. I actually thought when I made that decision -- and I also got a very, very strong recommendation, as you know, from the Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein. But when I made that decision, I actually thought that it would be a bipartisan decision, because you look at all of the people on the Democratic side -- not only the Republican side -- they were saying such terrible things about Director Comey.

Then he had the very poor performance on Wednesday. That was a poor, poor performance. So poor, in fact, that I believe -- and you’d have to ask him, because I don't like to speak for other people -- but I believe that's why the Deputy Attorney General went out and wrote his very, very strong letter.

And then, on top of that, after the Wednesday performance by Director Comey, you had a person come and have to readjust the record, which many people have never seen before, because there were misstatements made. And I thought that was something that was terrible.

We need a great director of the FBI. I cherish the FBI. It’s special. All over the world, no matter where you go, the FBI is special. The FBI has not had that special reputation with what happened in the campaign, what happened with respect to the Clinton campaign, and even you could say -- directly or indirectly -- with respect to the much more successful Trump campaign.

We're going to have a director who is going to be outstanding. I’ll be announcing that director very soon, and I look forward to doing it. I think the people in the FBI will be very, very thrilled.

And just in concluding, we look forward to getting this whole situation behind us so that when we go for the jobs, we go for the strong military, when we go for all of the things that we've been pushing so hard and so successfully, including healthcare -- because Obamacare is collapsing. It’s dead; it’s gone. There’s nothing to compare anything to because we don't have healthcare in this country. You just look at what’s happening. Aetna just pulled out. Other insurance companies are pulling out. We don't have healthcare. Obamacare is a fallacy. It’s gone. We need healthcare.

We need to cut taxes. We're going to cut taxes. Forget what I want; it will be the biggest tax cut in the history of our nation. And that's what I want. It’s going to bring back companies. It’s going to bring back jobs. We lost so many jobs and so many companies to countries that are not so far from you, Mr. President -- they're very close to you, actually -- and to many other places throughout the world. We're going to change that. We're going to have expansion.

We already do. You look at what’s happening with Ford and with General Motors in Michigan and Ohio. You look at the tremendous number of jobs that are being announced in so many different fields. That's what I’m proud of, and that's what we want to focus our energy on.

The other is something I can only tell you: There was no collusion. And everybody -- even my enemies have said, there is no collusion.

So we want to get back and keep on the track that we're on. Because the track that we're on is record-setting, and that's what we want to do, is we want to break very positive records.

Thank you.

You could ask a question.

PRESIDENT SANTOS: Sorry, you have another question?

Q For you -- yes, sir, Mr. President. My question is, as someone who led a nation that's really done a lot of rebuilding and had to rebound from an epidemic of crime and drugs over quite a many years, what do you make of Mr. Trump’s America First policy? And further, you've had a tough time with conservative radio, sometimes been called a punching bag. And you’ve said you have to persevere. I’m curious if you've given any advice to President Trump on how to do so.

PRESIDENT SANTOS: I don't think I’m in a position to give any advice to President Trump. He can take care of himself. (Laughter.)

And what we did in Colombia, you quite rightly mentioned it, is persevere. When you know your port of destination, and you know that you're doing the correct thing, you simply have to persevere. And that's what we've done in Colombia, and that's why we were on the verge of being a failed state some years ago. And now we're one of the stars of the region. And that's through hard work, perseverance, and clarity of your objectives. And that's what we have done, and we have to continue because the trip is not over.

Q (As interpreted.) Mr. President, I’d like to ask you about trade. You're about to start the renegotiation of NAFTA on Colombia. And like other countries in the hemisphere, it has a large trade deficit with the United States. Are you worried about the fact that that could contribute to increasing that trade deficit? What is your position on the peace process in Colombia?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, it's been a long process, and it’s been a great thing to watch in the sense that the President did a fantastic job. That's not easy after so many years of war. So I’m very, very proud to get to know you, and I really congratulate you. There’s nothing tougher than peace, and we want to make peace all over the world. And you are really a great example of somebody that started it.

I mean, FARC is -- that was a long, tough situation, as you know very well, coming from the country. But I think the President has done a magnificent job. Not easy. But he’s done a magnificent job.

PRESIDENT SANTOS: (As interpreted.) Clearer impossible. (Laughter.)

On the trade issue, our deficit with the United States is not so large. It is a moderate deficit, which, of course, both countries will try to increase the volume of trade in both directions, and investments also in both directions.

Colombia is becoming an important investor here in the United States, and this is something not many people know. But we have considerable investments in the United States.

We have attempted to give dynamism to these flows of trade, of investment, getting together those main players who are the investors in the private sector. I believe the foundations have been laid. We have the free-trade agreement, which is working well. The number of Colombian businesses that are exporting to the United States has grown. And we both believe that we can take greater advantage of those agreements in order to increase flows in both directions for the benefit both of the Colombian and American peoples.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you, thank you.

END
4:36 P.M. EDT

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press...ia-joint-press