larger multiplier impact today than manufacturing jobs had in previous airas. my commitment, my vision is to see how silicon valley can help create technology jobs, not just in my district, but across america. there is no reason that des moines, iowa, and wichita, kansas, and dayton, ohio, cannot become centers for technology innovation and have extraordinary technology jobs. i look forward to working across the aisle with my republican colleagues and democratic colleagues to figure out how we create tech jobs across this nation. thank you, mr. speaker. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1, the chair declares the house until noo

mr. trump: an went to various firms and ordered a very, very strong hacking defense and they tried to hack the republican national committee and they were unable to break through. wreef to do that for our country. it's very important. reporter: attempts to build a better relationship with president putin. mr. trump: president putin put out a statement today this fake news was indeed fake news. this totally never happened. of course he's going to say that. i respected the fact that he

said that. i'll be honest, i think if he did have something they would have released it. they would have been glad to release it. had they broken into the republican national committee, i think they would have released it just like they did about hillary and all the horrible things that her people like mr. poe desta said about her. what he said about her was horrible. if somebody said about me what podesta said about hillary, i was the boss, i would have fired him immediately. what he said about her was horrible. but remember this, we talk about the hacking. hacking's bad and it shouldn't be done. but look at the things that were hacked. look at what was learned from that hacking. that hillary clinton got the questions to the debate. and didn't report it? that's a horrible thing. that's a horrible thing. can you imagine if donald trump got the questions to the debate it would have been the biggest story in the history of stories and they would have said

immediately you have to get out of the race. nobody even talked about it. it's very terrible thing. reporter: thank you, mr. president-elect. on that intelligence report, the second part of the conclusion was putin ordered it because he aspired to help you in the election. do you accept that part of the finding? will you undo what president obama did to punish the russians for this? mr. trump: if putin likes donald trump, i consider that an asset not a liability because we have a horrible relationship with russia. russia can help us fight isis, which by the way is number one tricky. if you look, this administration created isis. by leaving at the wrong time. the void was created, isis was formed. if putin likes donald trump, guess what, folks? that's called an asset not a liability. i don't know that i'm going to get along with putin. i hope i do. but there's a good chance i won't. and if i don't, do you honestly

believe that hillary would be tougher on putin than me? does anybody in this room believe that? give me a break. k. reporter: mouse cow or st. petersburg engage in conduct you now regret -- you are potentially vulnerable to blackmail by russia or intelligence agencies? mr. trump: when i leave our country, i'm a very high-profile person, wouldn't you say? i am extremely careful. i'm surrounded by bodyguards. i am surrounded by people. and i always tell them anywhere, but i always tell them if i'm leaving this country be very careful because in your hotel rooms, no matter where you go, you are going to probably have cameras. i'm not referring just to russia, but i would certainly put them in that category. and number one, i hope you're going to be good anyway.

but in those rooms you have cameras in the strangest places. cameras that are so small with modern technology you can't see them and you won't know. you better be careful or you'll be watching yourself on nightly television. i tell this to people all the time. i was in russia years ago with the miss universe contest which did very well. moscow, the moscow area, did very, very well. i told many people be careful. because you don't want to see yourself on television. cameras all over the place. and again, not just russia. all over. does anyone really believe that story? i'm also very much of a germa fobe, by the way. -- germaphobe by the way. reporter: how do you plan to disentangle yourself from your business. first i have to foum some of these russia remarks. do you believe the hacking was

justified? does russia have any leverage over you, financial other otherwise? if not will you release your tax returns to prove it? mr. trump: i tweeted out i have no dealings with russia. i have no deals in russia. i have no deals that could happen in russia because we have stayed away. and i have no loans with russia as a real estate developer, i have very, very little debt. i have assets that are now people have found out how big the company s i have very low debt, but i have no loans with russia, at all. and i thought that was important to put out. i certified that. i have no deals. i have no loans. and i have no dealings. we could make deals in russia very easily if we wanted to. i don't want to because i think that would be a conflict. so i have no loans, no dealings, and no current pending deals. i have to say one other thing. over the weekend i was offered $2 billion to do a deal in dubai with a very, very, very amazing

man, a great, great developer. from the middle east. hussein demac, friend of mine. great guy. and was offered $2 billion to do a deal in dubai, a number of deals. and i turned it down. i didn't have to turn it down because as you know i have a no-conflict situation because i'm president, which is -- i didn't know about that until about three months ago, but it's a nice thing to have. but i don't want to take advantage of something. i have something that others don't have, vice president pens -- pence also has t i don't think he'll need it. but i have a no conflict of interest provision as president. it was many, many years old. this is for presidents because -- i understand. they don't want presidents getting tangled up in minutia,

they want a president to run the contry. coy actually run my -- country. i could actually run my business and government at the same time. i don't like the way that looks, but i would be able to do that if i wanted to. i would be the only one that could do that. you can't do that in any other capacity. but as a president i could run the trump organization, great, great company, and i could run the company. -- country. i would do a very good job. but i don't want to do that. all of these papers that you see here -- go ahead. reporter: do you believe the hacking was justified, and will you release your tax returns to prove what you're saying about no deals in russia? mr. trump: i'm not saying tax rereturns because they are -- tax returns because they are under audit. the only one that cares about my tax returns are the reporters. they are the only ones. i don't think so. i won. i became president. i don't think they care at all. all. t think they care at

you care. you learn very little from the tax return. what you should do is go down to the federal leakses and look at the numbers. people have learned a lot about my company and now they realize my company is much bigger, much more powerful than they ever thought. we're in very many countries and i'm proud of it. what i'm going to be doing is my two sons who are right here, don and eric, are going to be running the company. they are going to be running it in a very professional manner. they are not going to discuss it with me. again, i don't have to do this. they are not going to discuss it with me. and with that i'm going to bring up sherry dillon and she's going to go, these papers are just some of the many documents that i have signed turning over complete and total control to my ons.

>> good morning. my honor and privilege to be here today as president-elect trump's request. he's asked me as you just heard to speak about the conflicts of interest and the steps he's taking. as you know, the business empire built by president-elect trump over the years is massive. not dissimilar to the fortunes of nelson rockefeller when he became vice president. but at that time no one was so concerned. president-elect trump wants the american public to rest assured all of his efforts are directed to pursuing the people's business and not his own. to that end, as he explained a few moments ago, he directed me and my colleagues at the law firm morgan, lewis to design a structure for his business empire that would completely isolate him from the management of the company. he further instructed that we build in protections that will assure the american people the decisions he makes and the actions that he takes as president are for their benefit

and not to support his financial interests. as he said, he's voluntarily taking this on. the conflicts of interest laws simply do not apply to the president or the vice president, and they are not required to separate themselves from their financial assets. the primary conflicts of interest statute, some have questioned it, section 18 u.s.c. 208, and it's simply inapplicable by its terms. and this is not just our interpretation. it's the congress itself who have made this clear in 1989 when it amended section 18 u.s.c. 202 to state that, except as otherwise provided, the terms office and employee in section 208 shall not include the president. even so, president-elect trump wants there to be no doubt in the minds of the american public he is completely isolating himself from his business interests. he instructed us to take all

steps realistically possible to make it clear that he is not exploiting the office of the presidency for his personal benefit. he also sought the guidance of individuals who are familiar with and have worked extensively in the fields of government ethics and constitutional law. critical to the morgan lewis team is fred fielding, standing here to our side and with us today, and many of you have known him. he has served several presidents over the years, including serving as counsel to presidents ronald reagan and george w. bush, as well as serving on president george h.w. bush's commission on federal ethics law reform, and he also held the position of vice chair of the ethics resource center. mr. fielding has been extensively involved with and approves this plan. he's here today to support the plan and he will continue to provide guidance as the plan is implemented and as eric's son along with others take over management of the trump organization. i'm going to detail some of the

extraordinary steps now that the president-elect is taking. first, president-elect trump's investment and business assets, commonly known as the trump organization, comprising hundreds of entities which again, if you-all go and take a look, there is a financial disclosure statement, the pages and pages of entities, have all been or will be conveyed to a trust prior to january 20. here is just some of the paperwork that's taking care of those actions. second, through the trust agreement he has relinquished leadership andment of the trump organization to his sons don and eric and long time trump executive. together don, eric, and alan will have the authority to manage the trump organization and will make decisions for the duration of the presidency without any involvement whatsoever by president-elect trump. further, at the president-elect's direction, the trust agreement provides that to ensure the trump organization

continues to operate in accordance with the highest and legal ethics standards and ethics advisor. written approval of the ethics advisor will be required for new and transactions that complete. to be cannot be perceived exploy ploited of the office of the presidency. president-elect trump will resign from all officer and other positions he holds with the trump organization entities. further, in addition, his daughter, ivanka will have no involvement with or management authority whatsoever with the trump organization. as she and jared move their family to d.v., she will be focused on settling her children into their new homes and

schools. the president-elect has also already disposed of all of his investments and publicly traded or easily liquidated investments. as a result, the trust will have two types of assets. first, it will hold liquid assets, cash, cash equivalent, and treasuries. and perhaps some positions in a government approved diversified portfolio. one that is consistent with the regulations from the office of government ethics. second, the trust is going to hold his pre-existing, ill liquid, but very valuable business assets. the ones that everyone here is familiar with, trump owned, operated, branded golf clubs, commercial rental property, resorts, hotels, rights to royalties from pre-existing licenses of trump marks productions and goods. things like trump tower, all of his other business assets, will all be in the trust. through instructions in the trust agreement, president-elect trump first ordered that all pending deals be terminated.

this impacted more than 30 deals, many of which were set to close by the end of 2016. as you can well imagine, that caused an immediate financial loss of millions of dollars, not just for president-elect trump, but also for don, ivanka, and eric. the trust agreement as directed by president trump, imposes severe restrictions on new deals. no new foreign deals will be made whatsoever during the duration of president trump's presidency. new domestic deals will be allowed, but they will go through a vigorous vetting process. the president-elect will have no role in deciding whether the trump organization engages in any new deal and he will only know of a deal if he reads it in the paper or sees it on tv. because any new deal could and i emphasize could, be perceived as causing a conflict or exploiting the office of the presidency, new deals must be vetted with

the ethics advisor whose role will be to analyze any potential transactions for conflicts and ethics issues. the ethics advisor will be a recognized expert in the field of government experts. again, his role will be to scrutinize the new deals and the actions. and any new deal must receive written approval. to further reinforce the wall that we're building between president-elect trump and the trump organization, president-elect trump has ordered through his trust agreement to sharply limit his information rights. reports will only be available and reflect profit and loss on the company as a whole. there will be no separate business by business accounting. another step that president-elect trump has taken is he create add new position at the trump organization. the position of chief compliance counsel. whose responsibility will be to ensure that the trump businesses, again, are operating at the highest levels of

integrity and not taking any actions that could be perceived as exploiting the office of the presidency. he has also directed that no communications of the trump organization, including social media accounts, will reference or be tied to president-elect trump's role as president of the united states or the office of the presidency. in sum, all of these actions, completely relinquishment of management, no foreign deals, ethics advisor approval of deals, sharply limited information rights will sever president-elect trump's presidency from the trump organization. some have asked questions why not die vest? why not just sell everything? form a blind trust. i would like to turn to addressing some of those questions now. selling first and foremost would not eliminate possibilities of conflicts of interest. in fact, it would exacerbate them. the trump brand is key to the value of the trump organization's assets. if president-elect trump sold

his brand, he would be entitled to royalties for the use of it and this would result in the trust retaining an interest in the brand without the ability to assure that it does not exploit the office of the presidency. further, whatever price was paid would be subject to criticism and scrutiny. was it too high? is there pay for play? too much paid to curry favor with the president-elect? and selling his assets without the rights to the brand would greatly diminish the value of the assets and create a fire sale. president-elect trump should not be expected to destroy the company he built. this plan offers a suitable alternative to address the concerns of the american people. and the entire trump -- selling the entire organization isn't feasible. some people have suggested that the president-elect sell the business to his adult children. this would require massive third-party debt with lenders whose moat tiffs and willingness

would be questioned and investigated. if the president-elect were to finance the sale himself, he would retain the financial interests and the assets that he owns now. some people suggested that president-elect trump could bundle the assets and turn the trump organization into a public company. anyone who has gone through this process knows it's a nonstarter. it is not realistic and would be inappropriate for the trump organization. some people have suggested a blind trust. but you cannot have a totally blind trust with operating businesses. president trump can't unknow he owns trump tower. and the press will make sure that any new development at the trump organization are well publicized. further, it would be impossible to find an institutional trustee that would be competent to run the trump organization. the approach he is taking allows

don and eric to preserve this great company and iconic assets, and this approach is best from a conflicts and ethics perspective. it creates a complete separation from president-elect trump and separates him and prevents him from participating in the business, imposes strict limits on what the trustees can do, and requires the assent of any ethics advisor to a new deal. i'm going to turn to one last topic today that has been of interest lately. called emoluents. that's a word we have all become familiar with and not heard before. we're going to describe some other actions the president-elect trump is taking to avoid even the appearance of a conflict. it comes from the constitution. the constitution says, officials may not accept gifts, titles of nobility, or emol ewe meant from foreign governments with respect to their office. and that no benefit should be derived by holding an office.

the so-called clause has never been interpreted, however, to apply to fair value exchanges. it has absolutely nothing to do with an office holder. no one would have thought when the constitution was written that paying your hotel bill was an emolument. instead it would have been thought of as a value for value exchange, not a gift, not a title. but since president-elect trump has been elected, some people want to define emoluments to cover routine business transactions lying paying for hotel rooms. they suggest that the constitution prohibits the businesses from even arm's length transactions that the president-elect has absolutely nothing to do with and isn't even aware of. these people are wrong. this is not what the constitution says. paying for a hotel room is not a gift or a present and it has nothing to do with an office. it's not an emolument. the constitution does not require president-elect trump to do anything here.

but just like with conflicts of interest, he wants to do more than what the constitution requires. the president-elect trump has decided, and we're announcing today, is he going to voluntarily donate all profits from foreign government payments made to his hotels to the united states treasury. this way it is the american people who will profit. in sum, i and president-elect other advisors at morgan lewis have determined the approach we outlined today will avoid potential conflicts of interest or concerns regarding exploitation of the office of the presidency without imposing unnecessary and unreasonable losses on the president-elect and his family. we believe this structure and these steps will serve to accomplish the president-elect's desire to be isolated from his business interest and give the american people confidence that his sole business and interest is in making america great again. bringing back jobs to this country. securing our borders, and

rebuilding our infrastructure. the american people will well aware of president-elect's business empire and financial interest when he voted. people voted for him precisely because of his business success. president leekt trump wants to bring this success to all americans. thank you. [applause] reporter: what is your response to your critics that say not only but also your cabinet is filled with conflicts of interest and do you plan to set an example in the future to make sure that your cabinet and everyone throughout your administration -- mr. trump: i really think when you watch what's going on with -- what's happening, i was just watching as an example, rex

tellerson, i think it's -- tillerson, i think it's brilliant what he's doing and saying. i watched yesterday, as you know, our great senator, who is going to be a great attorney brilliant.d he was what people don't know is that e was a great prosecutor and attorney general in alabama. and he was brilliant yesterday. so i really think that they are -- i think we have one the great cabinets ever put together. and we have been hearing that from so many people. people are so happy. in the case of rex he ran incredibly exxonmobil. when there was a fine, he would get it. when they needed something, he would be there. a friend of mine who is very, very substantial in the oil business, harold ham, big supporter, he said, there's nobody in the business like rex tillerson. and that's what we want. that's what i want to bring to government.

i want to bring the greatest people into government. because we're way behind. we don't make good deals anymore. i say it all the time. it's speeches. we make bad deals. our trade deals are a disaster. we have hundreds of billions of dollars of losses on a yearly basis. hundreds of billions with china on trade and trade imbalance. with japan, with mexico, with just about everybody. we don't make good deals anymore. so we need people that are smart. we need people that are successful. and they got successful because generally speaking they are smart. and that's what i put. i'm very proud of the cabinet. i think they are doing very well. it's very interesting how it's going, but it's -- i think they are doing very, very well. reporter: i wanted to ask a few questions on obamacare. can you be specific on what guidance you are giving congressional republicans on the timeline for repeal and replace?

whether it needs to be simultaneous? mr. trump: finally obamacare. reporter: have you outlined a plan for what you want the replace package to look like? would it guarantee coverage for those who have gotten health insurance through the current obamacare law? mr. trump: you are going to be very, very proud as not only the media and reporters, you are going to be very proud of what we put forth. having to do with health care. obamacare is a complete and total disaster. they can say what they want. they can guide you any way they want to guide you. they guide you incorrectly. in most cases it's imploding. some states have over 100% increase, and 17, and i said this two years ago, 17 is going to be the bad year. it's going to be catastrophic. frankly we could sit back, it's

a thought from a political standpoint, but it wouldn't be fair to the people, we could sit back and wait and watch and criticize. and we could be a chuck schumer and sit back and criticize it and people would come, they would come, begging to us, please, we have to do something about obamacare. you don't want to own it. we don't want to own it politically. they own it right now. so the easiest thing would be to let it implode in 2017 and believe me, we get pretty much whatever we wanted. but it would take a long time. we're going to be submitting as soon as our secretary's approved, l-simultaneously, shortly thereafter, a plan. it will be repeal and replace, it will be essentially simultaneously. it will be various segments, you understand, but most likely be on the same day or week, but

probably the same day, could be the same hour. so we're going to do repeal and replace. very complicated stuff. and we're going to get a health bill passed. we're going to get health care taken care of in this country. you have deductibles that are so high that after people go broke paying their premiums, which are going through the roof, the health care can't even be used by them because the deductibles are so high. obamacare is the democrat's problem. we're going to take the problem off the shelves for them. we're doing them a tremendous service by doing it. we could sit back and let them hang with it. we're doing the democrats a great service. so as soon as our secretary is approved and gets into the office, we'll be filing a plan. it was actually pretty accurately reported today, "the

new york times," and the plan will be repeal and replace obamacare. we're going to have a health care that is far less expensive nd far better. reporter: when you look at all the meetings that you have, do you conceive of making this a program, maybe sitting inside of commerce? my follow-up question, is how soon will we see the program on corporate tax cuts? mr. trump: i was doing individual companies. that's only one company. like we did a good job with carrier. i want to thank united technologies, which owns carrier. but we saved close to 1,000 jobs. and they were gone. and mike pence and his staff helped us a lot. but those -- that was a tough one because they announced a year and a half before they were leaving. it's always