James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
2:37 P.M. EDT
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Good afternoon, everyone.
Q Good afternoon.
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Happy Monday. I do have a couple things at the top.
So, today we mark seven years since the tragic Pulse nightclub shooting. In the middle of Pride Month in 2016, our nation suffered what was then the deadliest mass shooting in American history. Forty-nine people, predominantly Latino members of the LGBTQI+ community, lost their lives in a senseless act of gun violence.
Today, we pray for the families of the victim and every survivor who still carries the trauma.
In 2021, President Biden signed a bill designating Pulse nightclub as a national memorial, enshrining into law that is hallowed ground.
The President is continuing to fight to the — to end the gun violence epidemic and continue to urge Congress to make commonsense reforms to keep our communities safe.
This Pride Month, the Biden-Harris administration is going to continue lifting the LGBTQI+ community up and honor the victims who aren't here with us today.
Tomorrow, the house will mark up the GOP Tax Scam 2.0, which they released on Friday. This bill makes House Republicans' values clear. Their priority isn't reducing the deficit; it's giving handouts to rich special interests and corporations that make the debt even larger.
Just weeks ago, House Republicans were demanding devastating cuts to programs hardworking Americans count on, from healthcare to public safety to Meals on Wheels, in the name of fiscal responsibility. But now they are proposing to spend hundreds of billions on tax breaks for big corporations, and they're laying the groundwork to spend trillions of additional tax cuts skewed to the wealthy and big corporations.
They would do that while repealing clean energy tax credits that are fueling our manufacturing resurgence, creating jobs, and lowering energy costs for working families. That would ship jobs overseas and raise taxes for the sa- — the — some middle-class families. And they're prioritizing restoring expi- — expired tax breaks for big corporations over restoring helping working families that need — that need a little bit more breathing room as it relates to childcare and other things that are important to American families.
Those are not the President's values. Instead of failed trickle-down policies, President Biden is growing the economy from the middle up and — middle out and bottom up.
His economic plan would cut taxes for working people, families with children, and it would pay for those tax cuts and reduce the deficit by ending the taxpayer subsidies for extremely profitable industries and making the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share. That's an agenda the American people support.
So, just moments ago, we made an announcement from here, and we are very excited to announce that Tom Perez will be serving as Senior Advisor, Assistant to the President, and Director of Intergovernmental Affairs.
Tom will build on the tremendous work of Julie Rodriguez. He brings decades of experience to the White House, having served in local, state, and federal government. His perspective and relationships as a former county councilman, a top civil rights attorney, and Secretary of Labor will be invaluable as we continue to work on government to — to implement our Invest in America and continue to make our government work for the people and for communities across the country.
With that, we have the Admiral in the room today to take any foreign policy questions that you all have. I know it's been a couple of days.
Admiral, the podium is yours.
MR. KIRBY: Thanks, Karine. How you all doing today? I don't have any opening statement. So —
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Oh, okay. Wow. (Laughter.)
MR. KIRBY: Over to you.
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I forgot you told me that.
MR. KIRBY: I did. I did.
Q Hi, John. Thanks for doing this. So, I'm wondering if you've completed or if you're in the process of a review to determine how the documents at Mar-a-Lago have impacted national security.
MR. KIRBY: Yeah, so I think the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has already spoken to the fact that they were conducting a national security assessment, and I would refer you to them. I don't have any update on that one way or the other.
Q So, today during an interview, Senator Rubio said that there's no allegation that there was harm done to the national security. Does that stand as of now?
MR. KIRBY: Again, I'd refer you to the Director of National Intelligence. They are working with the Justice Department on this, and they did say that they were going to conduct a national security assessment. I don't know the status of it. They'd be the ones to talk to you about that.
Q Okay. Thanks.
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Go ahead, Mary.
Q The administration now says that China already does have this intelligence facility in Cuba. What can you tell us broadly about the threat posed by this facility? And, just, bottom line, how concerned should Americans be that the Chinese are listening to us from this facility?
MR. KIRBY: Yeah. So, look, I think you can understand why we're — we're not going to be able to get into too much detail about our own counterintelligence efforts.
But as we communicated over the weekend, this is not a new development that China has been trying to achieve some intelligence-gathering capabilities in Cuba and, frankly, elsewhere in the hemisphere, and that, from day one, when we came in, we took this issue seriously. We've taken some steps to try to mitigate the vulnerability of those activities. And we're going to keep — and we're going to keep doing that.
And the last thing I'd say is we're confident that we can continue to protect our nation's secrets in this hemisphere and beyond and that — that we can continue to defend the country appropriately.
Q And can you just explain why you didn't confirm all of this when it was first reported last week? You said it was "inaccurate." But what was inaccurate seemed to basically be the tense that they, you know, weren't "going to establish" but "had already established" this facility. Why wait until Saturday to put this out there?
MR. KIRBY: I'm actually really glad you asked that question. I can tell you that — that we were as forthcoming as we should have been at the time the first stories appeared. There is — the sensitive nature of this information is such that we just simply couldn't go into more detail, even before the first story appeared, to try to better inform that reporting. That's how sensitive this stuff is. We just couldn't be more detailed.
And then, after the first stories that appeared, we worked very, very hard — as expeditiously as we could — with the intelligence community to try to get some context downgraded so that we could provide it over the weekend, and we did that. But we were as forthcoming as we should have been given the nature of this information.
Sadly, not everybody seems to take it as seriously as we do, because, clearly, there's a source or sources out there that think it's somehow beneficial to put this kind of information into the public stream, and it's absolutely not. And there's a limit, even now, to what we can say about — about our knowledge of these activities.
And I can just tell you, as somebody who works with all of you on lots of different sensitive stories, I wasn't about — in any way, shape, or form — to violate operational security by talking in any more detail either before the first story or after the first story.
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Go ahead, Nadia.
Q Thank you. Two questions — first on Iran, and second on Sudan. On Iran, the Israeli Prime Minister is saying that any potential deal between the administration and Iran is not going to be binding for Israel. I know the White House denied the talks. But how can — how will it complicate the bigger pictures if Israel actually is not cooperating with you and not on board? And how close do you consult with them?
MR. KIRBY: We consult with Israel very, very closely. As a matter of fact, I think you know the coordinator for the Middle East, Brett McGurk, was in the region not long ago and — and had meetings with Israeli counterparts. We consult with them very, very closely. We have a shared idea of the continuing destabilizing behavior and threats coming from Iran in the region.
Again, I'm not going to confirm press reports about deals or no deals.
We are laser-focused on the destabilizing activity, and it crosses a lot of realms — not just the nuclear ambitions, but the increasing ballistic missile capabilities, the burgeoning defense relationship with Russia, the support to Russia in Ukraine, the harassing of maritime shipping, the support of terrorist networks in the region. I could go on and on.
And we talk with the Israelis all the time about this. We have a common sight picture about these threats.
Now, the Israelis can speak for themselves — as any nation should speak for themselves — about how they're going to deal with the threat. All I can do is tell you what we're doing.
Q On Sudan, the administration efforts along with the Saudis have not succeeded of ending the bloodshed or even sustaining the — the ceasefire. Is this anything more that can be done to stop what's happening now?
MR. KIRBY: We're still in Jeddah. We still want to see a ceasefire. We still want to see a transition to civilian authority. We still want to see both sides put their guns down. And we're going to stay at that work through diplomacy.
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Go ahead, Jeremy.
Q Thanks. Hey, John. The Amer- — an American citizen, Travis Leake, was arrested in Russia on drug charges. I'm wondering if you have any comment on that arrest and to what extent you're working to determine whether this is a similar wrongful detention case?
