This is more fun than an indoor briefing. I'll take --
Karoline, how was the president's --
Some questions.
Call with Putin?
Sure. He just put out a Truth statement. If you haven't seen it yet, I encourage you to look at it. But it was -- I was just talking with the president and the secretary of state and the vice president. And it was a very good and productive call. It lasted more than two hours. There were various issues that were discussed.
President Putin congratulated President Trump for solving the conflict in Israel and Gaza and bringing peace back to the Middle East. He also thanked the first lady for her efforts to bring back children and save children in this brutal conflict. And the president feels that great progress was made on this call.
They also agreed to have a high level senior staff meeting convene as early as next week, which will then be followed by a meeting very likely between President Trump and President Putin as well. They talked about Budapest as being a location for that. So, as you all know, President Zelenskyy is coming to the White House tomorrow, so these discussions will continue.
And frankly, I think the president deserves great credit. He literally just got off of a trip to the Middle East, where -- historic peace and accomplishments, seeing the hostages return out of Gaza. These are major foreign policy accomplishments that so many people around the world thought could never be achieved.
And so, I think the president deserves a great deal of credit for doing that, coming home, dealing with so many domestic issues, and then again hopping on yet another call with President Putin and hosting President Zelenskyy again at the White House tomorrow to try to move the ball forward in peace and end this conflict in Russia-Ukraine.
Karoline?
So, that's where we are.
Karoline? Karoline? Karoline? Thank you. After their meeting in Alaska, the president was optimistic that he could get Zelenskyy and Putin together in a room. Does he still believe that he can get the two leaders together sometime soon?
I think he thinks it's possible. And he would, of course, love to see that happen. But right now, there were discussions, and plans are now being made for the Russian side and our folks, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to meet and then for President Putin and President Trump to perhaps meet again.
But I don't think the president has closed the door on that at all.
And when is -- Karoline? He going to meet with Putin? You said in Hungary. Possibly when?
Well, this call literally just happened, so we will provide you with more details as soon as we can, I promise.
Karoline? So, did Vladimir Putin commit to sitting down with President Trump and. President Zelenskyy?
He committed to sitting down with President Trump, as President Trump's Truth post put out for you.
And what -- did he say what it would take for him to be willing to sit down with Zelenskyy finally as well?
I don't want to get into that. But as I just said, the president and President Putin discussed meeting together in Budapest. And President Trump will talk about that opportunity with President Zelenskyy when he's here at the White House tomorrow.
Karoline? Does Trump believe any conditions have changed to make a second meeting with Putin better, more successful than the Alaska meeting?
I think the president is always willing to take a chance on diplomacy. And this war, he has always said, is going to have to end at the negotiating table. And so, he's -- you know, he never gives up, and he's willing to pursue it. And that's what you're hearing from the president today.
Karoline? Karoline, Nicolas Maduro -- Karoline? I have a question on the cartels. Yesterday, we learned that at least the fifth strike on a boat off the Venezuelan coast took place. We know that the Trump administration has previously said that they're in armed conflict with the people that you are -- the administration is striking.
Who are these people? And don't you think not only the people -- the American people but lawmakers deserve to know who they are?
Narco terrorists who are trafficking drugs illegally to the United States of America.
But who --
That's who were in a conflict with. And the -- and the president's been very clear, and he's been very transparent about these strikes, releasing classified video, un-classifying that video -- declassifying it, rather, for all of you to see and to let the public and lawmakers know with each of these strikes.
And, you know, there should be no surprise for this. The president campaigned on using every lever of power to go after the drug cartels who have been trafficking illicit poison into our country for far too long. And you heard the president speak about this yesterday. There was a question about why not just use the Coast Guard to grab these boats and -- and grab the drugs on them.
That's been going on for years and years, and the drug epidemic in this country has not gotten any better. The cartels have only gotten more powerful. So, the president is taking these unprecedented steps, and it's making a real impact. We are seeing less boats with lots of drugs coming into the shores of the United States of America as a result of these successful strikes, and I think the American people can expect them to continue.
Karoline? Karoline, Nicolas Maduro -- Karoline, doesn't --
[Crosstalk]
-- Nicolas Maduro, does -- [Inaudible] know who they are? [Inaudible] change in the leadership at the IRS, specifically putting two of Trump's main allies into leadership positions in the Criminal Investigations Division. There's reports that George Santos is on the list to be investigated.
Is there anybody else that you know of that is being looked at or being mentioned of being looked at?
Not to my knowledge, no. You'll have to reach out to the Department of Treasury.
Karoline? Nicolas Maduro? Does President Trump believe -- Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, does President Trump believe his days are numbered there?
I think President Trump believes that Nicolas Maduro is an illegitimate president leading an illegitimate regime that has been trafficking drugs to the United States of America for far too long. And we're not going to tolerate it.
Right now, there's a $50 million -- On the shutdown, do you --
Go ahead.
Has President Trump set a new deadline on Hamas? I mean, yesterday he said, you know, straightened out quickly. But, I mean, do we have an update on sort of what that means and what that new deadline could look like?
I won't set a deadline for the president. It's only for him to do that. But what I can tell you is that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who deserve great credit for bringing this deal to a close, for getting the hostages out of Gaza in the first place, are actively working on this. They are continuing to discuss this with both sides to ensure that all of the bodies are found and returned.
And, you know, I was speaking with them about this yesterday. I know there's been a lot of reporting about the slower pace of bodies being returned to Israel. These bodies, unfortunately, are very deep underground, and so it's going to take some time and some special equipment to actually retrieve these bodies and bring them back to Israel.
And the administration is fully committed to helping all sides get that done. It was part of the deal, and we're going to see it through.
Karoline? What about -- Karoline? Thanks. Does the White House have a response to the court case that prevented your RIFs, your shut down RIFs going through? Does that take away the -- the president's leverage to end the shutdown?
I'm so glad you asked because I have a very strong response. This is another far left partisan judge who was smacked down by the Supreme Court in July for ruling on this exact same thing. In May, this judge tried to say that the president of the United States does not have the executive authority to hire and fire in the executive branch.
Literally nobody would ever try to make that argument except for someone who is extremely partisan. And of course, the Supreme Court rejected that ruling in July. And they said, no, the president does have the ability and the legal authority to fire people from the federal government. That is a responsibility of his job as the head of the executive branch.
And so, you have the same judge going back to the -- to the bench and ruling on the basis of politics. We are a hundred percent confident we will win this on the merits of the law. And these layoffs are an unfortunate consequence of the government shutdown. We are now on day 16 of this Democrat shutdown.
Democrats just voted again for the 10th time to keep the government closed and to keep the American people hostage. And we're seeing the consequences of it every day. We've had thousands of flights delayed and canceled. Air traffic controllers, TSA agents continue to work without pay. The president tapped into tariff revenue to keep WIC money for women and infants and children going out the door.
The president found a creative solution to keep the troops paid. And rather than congratulate the president for doing that, this unprecedented action to get our troops paid, the Democrats want to sue him for it. They're saying that it's illegal. This just shows they don't care about the people who are hurting.
They are shutting down the government purely for partisan politics because they don't like Donald Trump. And the only people that are suffering from that are federal government employees who are being laid off from their jobs, who are not being paid for their jobs, our military, our federal law enforcement, and the American people who can't catch a plane with holiday season coming up because flights are being delayed and canceled.
Democrats need to do the right thing. And I don't know if you guys caught the CNN town hall last night with AOC and Bernie Sanders, but I sure did. And it's very clear that they are now the leaders of the Democrat Party and the Democrats are in complete disarray. And we hope a few moderate Democrats with some common sense will step up to the plate and do the right thing to vote to open the federal government.