TRANSCRIPT: JD Vance, Pete Hegseth, And Tulsi Gabbard Hold Press Briefing At U.S.-Mexico Border

Or the people who have come up and said we’ve seen a reduction in 85% of the number of people who are dying at the American southern border.

And every single day that we continue to keep this border safe, that means less migrant crime, that means less fentanyl coming into our communities, that means more safety and security for the people of the United States of America.

Of course we know the border problem, the border crisis under Biden’s administration was a national crisis, but it acutely affected the communities right here. And I’ve already heard heartbreaking stories of people who are still picking up the pieces, local mayors who are still dealing with the budgetary consequences of what the Joe Biden administration allowed to happen at the American southern border. And that too is something that President Trump is going to help address, help fix, and help solve.

Now I wanted to bring Secretary Hegseth and Director Gabbard at DNI down here because one, I obviously enjoy their company and it’s good to have them down here with me looking around today. But unfortunately we know that because of what’s happened, the border crisis has become a matter of national intelligence and it’s also become something that requires the Department of Defense to engage with.

I was talking with Paul Perez earlier, the drone technology that the cartels are using requires unfortunately a military response and military support. So it was important for Secretary Hegseth to see what’s going on because we know that the millions and millions of people who were let in over the last four years, many of them are connected to foreign terrorists. It’s important for our leader of national intelligence to get a sense of what’s here on the ground.

So before we take questions from the press, and all of us are willing to take questions, I want to give Secretary Hegseth and then Director Gabbard an opportunity to say a few words themselves. Mr. Secretary.

Remarks by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth

[PETE HEGSETH:] Well Mr. Vice President, thank you very much for inviting us. It’s great to be here with you, with the director, with our fellow friends in civilian clothes and in other shades of green. This is a demonstration of a true partnership on the southern border.

As President Trump has made clear from on the campaign trail and from day one and last night, border security is national security. And from the Defense Department we’ve watched for a couple of decades other people’s borders being secured while ours was open for an invasion of drugs and of violence and of chaos for American communities.

That stops under President Trump and the Defense Department has assets that we can bring to bear, not just troops, not just surveillance, not just equipment, but actual planning and capabilities that enhance what Border Patrol is already doing, which is why it’s been incredible to hear from our partners about what we’ve been able to allow them to do, facilitate them, and we’ve seen it in the numbers.

98% drop in crossings on the southern border. We’re not yet at a hundred percent operational control, but we are on our way because that is the mandate that the president has given us.

So more resources are coming to this border. We are dedicated to securing it. That’s the reason for our trip and our partnership and I want to thank all the men and women who’ve been doing it recently in uniform, who have been doing it a long time, right here have dedicated their lives to securing the American people and at the Defense Department we are committed to continuing to being a big part of it.

So Mr. Vice President, thanks for having us.

Remarks by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard

[TULSI GABBARD:] Thank you, Mr. Vice President, for your leadership and bringing the country’s attention to what has been happening here at the border and the significant change that has already occurred under the short time that President Trump has been in office.

Really what you’re seeing here today and what you’ll continue to see is a unified effort across President Trump’s national security team, the Department of Homeland Security, towards our mission, which is to ensure a safe, free, and prosperous society for Americans.

As Director of National Intelligence, there are a number of areas where we are focused. The president talked about in his speech, over 21 million people have come across our borders illegally under Joe Biden’s administration. There are many of them that we don’t know who they are. They have not been vetted. We don’t know where they are.

I’ll give you one quick example of one of the problems that we are getting after. From Central Asia, there were over 4,000 people who came across our borders using an ISIS-affiliated network. Our National Counterterrorism Center went through and identified those individuals. There were hundreds of them who were either known terrorists or associated with known terrorists.

That information was provided to the Biden administration. You may remember in some of the news, a little over 100 of those people were arrested in 2024. Of those who were arrested, only eight were either deported or remained in custody. Only eight. The rest of them were released back into our country. Where are they? What are they doing? What may they be plotting?

This is just the beginning. There are many, many areas that we need to stay very focused on, working with Department of Homeland Security, working with the FBI, to ensure that we’re keeping the American people safe.

Our Counterterrorism Center is working on making sure that we have that single source for vetting, so that we can figure out who is actually in our country and identify those who pose a threat and get them removed.

The President’s designation of the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations falls directly into this, especially as we’re seeing some of the tactics that these cartels are using reflect some of the tactics that we’ve seen used by Islamist terrorists in countries that many of us have served in overseas.

Our mission is very clear. Our objective is to keep the American people safe. I’m grateful to be a part of this team that President Trump has assembled to accomplish that mission. Thank you.

Concluding Remarks by Vice President Vance

[JD VANCE:] So, before I take questions, let me just say two final things. First of all, the reason why we’ve seen, as Pete said, a 98% reduction of border crossings, the reason why this particular site has gone from over 1,500 crossings per day to 30 crossings per day, is because President Trump has empowered and, in fact, demanded that his whole government take the task of border control seriously. That’s exactly what we’re doing.

And, of course, and this leads to my final point before we take questions, it is impossible to do without the men and women on the ground who are actually doing the hard work. They just want to be empowered to do their jobs. President Trump has made that possible.

So, from the bottom of my heart and for a grateful nation, to every person I’ve met here today, thank you for working hard on the American people’s business. It’s been an honor to be with you. It’s been an honor to see what you do.

[JD VANCE:] And we’re going to keep on supporting you over the next four years. Congressman Gonzalez, thank you for being here and thank you for your leadership. And now we’ll take some questions from reporters.

[REPORTER:] As you guys have been exemplifying for today that border crossings are down, a lot of attention has been turned to the interior since, obviously, there’s been a lot of illegal immigrants. What is, in your opinion, the biggest obstacle to actually carrying out President Trump’s mass deportations? Even though, yes, apprehensions and arrests and deportations have gone up in his first month, but a lot of people are expecting a bigger capacity for deportation. So, what’s the biggest hurdle?

[JD VANCE:] Let me say a few things about that. First of all, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and we have seen pretty significant increases in deportations and apprehensions and arrests. But we have to remember that President Biden gutted the entire immigration enforcement regime of this country. We are trying to rebuild so that we actually empower people to enforce the immigration laws of the American people. It is common sense. It’s what the American people want us to do.

There are a couple of other things that we’re working on. I don’t want to get ahead of any public announcements, but one of the ways that we wanted to make sure that we’re enforcing our border is that we make it easier for people who are here illegally to go back home of their own accord. We don’t want to have to go around and arrest every person, but we will enforce the American people’s immigration laws. If you’re here illegally, the message from our administration is you should go back home, and if you want to come to the United States, apply through the proper channels. That’s an important thing that we’re doing.

And the final thing is this costs money. One of the most important parts of the President’s reconciliation priorities is, of course, tax reform on the one hand, and on the other hand, making sure that we get proper resources so that we can pay for the flights, and we can pay for the detention centers, and we can pay for all the components necessary to ensure that we’re re-migrating illegal immigrants back to their country of origin. I guarantee it is a part of the President’s priorities. We’ll keep on working on it. We’ve made a lot of progress, but we’re going to keep on working on it over the remainder of the President’s term.

[REPORTER:] I want to ask you about border wall and tariffs, but first on the border wall.

[JD VANCE:] Could you say your outlet, by the way, when you guys ask questions?

[REPORTER:] Reagan-Reese, Daily Caller. Thank you. How do you and the President define success this term with the border wall, and how much of the southern border wall needs to be walled off before Trump leaves office?

Border Wall Strategy

[JD VANCE:] Well, look, I think the President’s hope is that by the end of the term, we build the entire border wall, and of course, that’s the physical structure of the border wall itself, but we even heard today there are so many good technological tools, so many great artificial intelligence enabled technologies that allow us, for example, a camera – not a person, but a camera – picks up somebody two miles away who’s about to come across the southern border. Maybe it’s livestock, right? Maybe it’s a critter in the desert. Maybe it’s a human being with a weapon on their back.

We’re using artificial intelligence to make us better at the job of border enforcement, but we’ve got to make sure that technology is deployed across the entire American southern border. We’re going to do it as much as we can, as broadly as we can, because that’s how we’re going to protect the American people’s security.

[REPORTER:] Last time they were paused because they deployed 10,000 troops to the border. What can they do this time to make the tariffs go away?

Tariffs and Mexico’s Role

[JD VANCE:] Well, what the President said is we need to sustain commitment from the government of Mexico to take the job of border security seriously. Fentanyl is the single largest cause of death among young Americans, and we know that a substantial portion of it is, you know, the precursors are made in China. They come to Mexico. They’re manufactured in Mexico and brought across the border by the Mexican drug cartels. We want to see fewer Americans dying of these terrible fentanyl overdoses when we’re going to apply as much leverage as possible to the Mexican government as possible.

In some ways, look, the President obviously cares deeply about the American people. He serves the American people first. I actually think he’s doing a huge favor to the people of Mexico, because if they don’t get control of these cartels, the people of Mexico are going to wake up in a narco state where the cartels have more power than their own government. President Trump is trying to help. The Mexican government needs to take this issue of immigration enforcement seriously.

[REPORTER:] Mr. Vice President, Ali Bradley, News Nation. So since the designation of the cartels as terrorists, does that give the United States a green light to go into Mexico and to strike them there? I mean, right now, obviously, they’ve struck in the Houthis in Yemen, so why not, when we’ve seen cross-border violence, go after them in Mexico? And then my second question is about a designation. I’ll follow up on these.

[JD VANCE:] Go ahead and ask the second question.

[REPORTER:] Why isn’t the Juarez slash La Linea cartel designated when it’s in one of the most deadliest places on the planet? Juarez has been designated as one of the deadliest cities. It’s right across from El Paso. We’ve talked to community leaders. They say, we know Juarez cartels operating in the U.S. and so are their affiliates. We don’t even want to talk about it out loud, though, because then we’ll put a target on our back. They’re scared. Border Patrol even thought they were designated, but they’re not. The State Department didn’t tell me why.

Cartel Terrorist Designations

[JD VANCE:] On that, we’re looking at additional organizations. Obviously, the determination of whether to determine a particular organization, a terrorist organization, is something that we consult with our leaders of the Department of Defense. We also consult with our friends and other governments. We maintain the optionality to designate further organizations, terrorist organizations, if we feel that we need to, in order to protect the American people. And I think President Trump has made it very clear he’s not going to be shy about designating some of these cartel organizations as terrorists if he thinks he has to protect the American people.

Your first question was about American forces to strike. I’m not going to make any announcements about any invasions of Mexico here today. The President has a megaphone and, of course, he’ll speak to these issues as he feels necessary. But what designating cartel organizations allows us to do is deploy the full resources of the United States military to engage in serious border enforcement.

Of course, the President is going to make the determination about how we deploy those forces, but our hope here, our hope is that Mexico takes this job seriously. We don’t want to have negative relationships with the Mexican government. We want the Mexican government to help itself, but also in the process to help the American people by taking these organizations seriously. It’s going to destabilize the entire country of Mexico, the entire government, if they don’t take it more seriously. We’re hopeful that they will, and if they don’t, then, of course, we’ll figure out what to do from there.

[REPORTER:] So, you just mentioned something about invasion of Mexico. Is there any talk or any thoughts about actually U.S. military forces going into Mexico?

[JD VANCE:] No. Next question.

Tariff Implementation

[REPORTER:] On tariffs, are any other industries other than automotive reaching out to you guys to carve out special deals, and did the automotive industry know this is coming before today?

[JD VANCE:] Well, a number of industries have reached out to us to ask us for exceptions to the tariffs, but I think the President’s been very clear here that he wants the tariffs to apply broadly. He doesn’t want to have 500 different industries getting 500 different carve-outs, and the way to avoid application of the tariffs is to have your factory and have your facility in the United States of America. That is the way. Invest in America. That is how you will avoid being penalized by these tariffs.

[REPORTER:] KSAT 12, John Paul Barajas. You’ve been talking about the improvements that your administration has done here with the crossings. Can you talk about the decline prior to President Trump taking office under the Biden administration?

[JD VANCE: Well, I think, like so many Americans, apparently members of the Mexican drug cartel figured out in November and December after the election that Joe Biden was asleep at the wheel, and they had to be dealing with the then-president-elect and now-president.

If you look at what drove the declines before the inauguration, people will tell you they knew that Donald Trump was coming back into office. They knew he was going to take border enforcement seriously, and so they were already getting ahead of actually cutting down those illegal crossing numbers. We saw that from the Mexican government, of course, because we were threatening some economic sanctions against them, but we also saw it from the cartels themselves.

And even today, because it takes a little time to get from the deepest parts of Central America to the American southern border, what we often find is that there are massive numbers of illegal immigrants who have already started to make the trek and have decided, because Donald Trump’s president, we’re going to go back home. We heard today about a Honduran group of migrants who decided they’re just going to go back home because they recognize that under Donald Trump’s leadership, we take border enforcement seriously.

Thank you all. Take care.

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