Hegseth and Rubio expected to brief ‘Gang of Eight’ as Trump refuses to rule out sending troops to Venezuela – US politics live

Group that includes congressional leaders and leading intelligence committee members is traditionally briefed on major national security actionsAsked by Politico to grade the US economy, Trump first rated it as ‘A-plus’, before upgrading it to ‘A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus’. Questioned over the cost of living for voters, Trump said he “inherited a total mess”, and added: “Prices were at an all-time high when I came in. Prices are coming down substantially …It’s been 10 months. It’s amazing what we’ve done.”Asked if he would rule out reducing tariffs on any more goods, Trump said:“On some. And on some I’ll increase tariffs. Because you know what happens is because of tariffs, all of the car companies are coming back.”You know, we lost 58% of the automobile business. We a monopoly in the world. We had everything. And because we had presidents that either weren’t smart or didn’t have business sense or their people didn’t do a good job ... they could’ve kept that.“We could’ve kept the chip market. We had 100% of the chip market, Intel, all of these guys. You know, there’s the thing. They came in to see me, Intel. They needed something to be done by the government. I said, I’m gonna do it, but I think you have to give us 10% of your company. You know what happened? We made $40bn on that deal. The price went through the roof. The United States ... in about 10 minutes, I made $40bn. Nobody talks about that.”Nvidia’s US Customers are already moving forward with their incredible, highly advanced Blackwell chips, and soon, Rubin, neither of which are part of this deal.My Administration will always put America FIRST. The Department of Commerce is finalizing the details, and the same approach will apply to AMD, Intel, and other GREAT American Companies. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Continue reading...