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President Joe Biden met this afternoon with families of Americans taken hostage by Hamas. The President provided an update on U.S. efforts to secure the release of all hostages, and reaffirmed the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to getting the hostages home to their loved ones and families. The Administration has worked tirelessly to get a deal done as soon as possible to bring the hostages home, and the President also assured the families those efforts will continue. 

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The post Readout of President Biden’s Meeting with Families of Americans Taken Hostage by Hamas appeared first on The White House.

President Joe Biden met this afternoon with families of Americans taken hostage by Hamas. The President provided an update on U.S. efforts to secure the release of all hostages, and reaffirmed the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to getting the hostages home to their loved ones and families. The Administration has worked tirelessly to get a deal done as soon as possible to bring the hostages home, and the President also assured the families those efforts will continue. 

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The post Readout of President Biden’s Meeting with Families of Americans Taken Hostage by Hamas appeared first on The White House.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Thank you, Governor—Ed. You always have Pennsylvania in your heart. Joe and I are so grateful to have seen that heart—and to have had the opportunity to show you ours, to be able to call you a friend.

You’re a true leader—putting people first, always thinking about how you can do the most good, how you can bring in more voices and perspectives. It’s been an honor to walk by your side all these decades, to see how your smile, your wit, and advocacy change every room you’re in. Thank you for inviting me to be a part of this special event.

It’s always great to be home, especially during football season—go Birds!

And I’m glad to be joined by so many members of the Philadelphia City Council.

Growing up here, you learn a lot about our history—even without trying. On any corner, you can find the footprints of our past. And that’s before you look up and see the tour guides dressed as Benjamin Franklin.

Like every kid from this city, I remember school trips to the Betsy Ross Museum and Independence Hall. Those historic halls shaped how I see the world—and I carry those memories with me everywhere I go.

But sometimes it can be hard to see how that history connects to us, right now—how those pieces of the past can be a part of our present and our future.

That’s why this project is so important.

The work Philadelphia 250, Danielle, and everyone in this room is doing reminds us to keep reaching for those promises on which our nation was founded: That we are all created equal. That our rights can never be taken from us. That happiness is ours to pursue.

You’re also showing the nation that Philly is more than a backdrop—it’s a place of inspiration, of freedom, and of people working to live up to those founding ideals.

Our city isn’t just an echo of days past. It also holds our future.

You know, at times, people have told me that Philadelphians are tough. That we’re outspoken—loud. And that’s putting it nicely.

But what they’re talking about is the same grit that made this country.

Yes, we are tough. We’re fierce. When we get knocked down, we get back up. And we never stop fighting for the things we care about—the people we care about.

What you’re doing today is part of that great tradition. And that’s who Philly taught me to be. It made me.

I hold this city in my heart every day. And it’s been the honor of this Philly girl’s lifetime to serve as your First Lady.

Our democracy was born here.

A moment that changed the world.

And today, down every side street and great boulevard, at every Wawa and corner store, in city hall and union halls, are the conversations that will shape this city’s next 250 years.

Just as Philly has done again and again, we will keep standing up for what we believe in—putting forward our best ideas by the people, and for all the people, and loving each other and this city we call home, always.

Thank you.

###

The post Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by First Lady Jill Biden at the PHILADELPHIA250 Countdown to the 250th Gala appeared first on The White House.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Thank you, Governor—Ed. You always have Pennsylvania in your heart. Joe and I are so grateful to have seen that heart—and to have had the opportunity to show you ours, to be able to call you a friend.

You’re a true leader—putting people first, always thinking about how you can do the most good, how you can bring in more voices and perspectives. It’s been an honor to walk by your side all these decades, to see how your smile, your wit, and advocacy change every room you’re in. Thank you for inviting me to be a part of this special event.

It’s always great to be home, especially during football season—go Birds!

And I’m glad to be joined by so many members of the Philadelphia City Council.

Growing up here, you learn a lot about our history—even without trying. On any corner, you can find the footprints of our past. And that’s before you look up and see the tour guides dressed as Benjamin Franklin.

Like every kid from this city, I remember school trips to the Betsy Ross Museum and Independence Hall. Those historic halls shaped how I see the world—and I carry those memories with me everywhere I go.

But sometimes it can be hard to see how that history connects to us, right now—how those pieces of the past can be a part of our present and our future.

That’s why this project is so important.

The work Philadelphia 250, Danielle, and everyone in this room is doing reminds us to keep reaching for those promises on which our nation was founded: That we are all created equal. That our rights can never be taken from us. That happiness is ours to pursue.

You’re also showing the nation that Philly is more than a backdrop—it’s a place of inspiration, of freedom, and of people working to live up to those founding ideals.

Our city isn’t just an echo of days past. It also holds our future.

You know, at times, people have told me that Philadelphians are tough. That we’re outspoken—loud. And that’s putting it nicely.

But what they’re talking about is the same grit that made this country.

Yes, we are tough. We’re fierce. When we get knocked down, we get back up. And we never stop fighting for the things we care about—the people we care about.

What you’re doing today is part of that great tradition. And that’s who Philly taught me to be. It made me.

I hold this city in my heart every day. And it’s been the honor of this Philly girl’s lifetime to serve as your First Lady.

Our democracy was born here.

A moment that changed the world.

And today, down every side street and great boulevard, at every Wawa and corner store, in city hall and union halls, are the conversations that will shape this city’s next 250 years.

Just as Philly has done again and again, we will keep standing up for what we believe in—putting forward our best ideas by the people, and for all the people, and loving each other and this city we call home, always.

Thank you.

###

The post Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by First Lady Jill Biden at the PHILADELPHIA250 Countdown to the 250th Gala appeared first on The White House.

Via Teleconference

10:05 A.M. EST
 
MODERATOR:  Hi, everyone.  Thank you so much for joining today’s call.  This is Michael Feldman with the NSC press team. 
 
I’m just going to start up top with the ground rules.  Today’s call is attributed to — on background, attributed to senior administration officials and will be held under embargo until 12:30 p.m. Eastern. 
 
Today’s call is to preview the upcoming bilateral meeting between President Biden and President Xi at the APEC Summit in Peru.
 
For awareness and not for attribution, today’s speakers are [senior administration official] and [senior administration official].  With that, I will turn it over to [senior administration official] to provide opening remarks.
 
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Great.  Thank you so much.  And thanks so much for joining today.  I’m cognizant there are many news stories.  I’m glad you chose to spend a bit of time with us today.
 
On November 16, President Biden will meet with President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China on the sidelines of the 2024 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Lima, Peru.  We’ve been working towards this meeting since National Security Advisor Sullivan visited Beijing in late August.  And as you’ll recall, he briefed the press at that time that we expected the two leaders to meet later this year on the margins of either APEC or G20.
 
This will be the third in-person meeting between the two leaders since President Biden entered into office.  They previously met in Bali, in 2022, on the margins of the G20, and at Woodside, in 2023, on the margins of APEC, exactly one year and one day ago from this upcoming meeting.
 
The two presidents have known each other for more than a decade, dating back to when they were both vice presidents, and have spent many hours in meetings together.  We expect this will be their last meeting as presidents. 
 
With that in mind, we expect the President will use the opportunity to take stock of efforts to responsibly manage competition over the last four years, how the two countries have advanced areas of shared interest, and, even amidst deep differences and intense competition, have worked to do so.
 
Throughout his time in office, President Biden has emphasized the importance of responsibly managing one of the world’s most consequential relationships.  And from the very beginning of this administration, four years ago, President Biden made it clear the United States would advance and protect our interests at home and abroad.  And the framework of this administration’s China policy — invest, align, and compete — has remained constant over the last four years.
 
The President has prioritized investments and sources of U.S. strength at home, strengthened our alliances abroad, and taken commonsense measures to protect U.S. technology and national security.
 
As mentioned before, at the same time, the President has demonstrated that our two countries can and must manage our differences and prevent competition from veering into conflict or confrontation by maintaining open lines of communication and advancing cooperation in areas of shared interest. 
 
I expect President Biden will want to take stock of the progress we have made in a number of areas since the Woodside Summit last year.  That cooperation can be an important stabilizing force in the relationship.  For example, over the last year, the two sides have resumed military-to-military communications at all levels.  At the senior level, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Brown, Secretary of Defense Austin, and the INDOPACOM commander have met or had telephone calls with their PRC counterparts over the last year.
 
The U.S. and the PRC also restarted the Defense Policy Coordination Talks in January of 2024 and have carried out agreed-upon defense engagements since, to include the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement, MMCA, which is an operator-to-operator level talks that was just held earlier this month, and Crisis Communications and Prevention Working Group that was held in late October. 
 
These discussions are important to avoid misunderstanding and miscalculation.  And for the first time this year, I should add as well, both sides pre-notified their respective ICBM launches.
 
President Biden has made clear and will continue to emphasize the importance of maintaining military-to-military communications at all times and especially during times of heightened tension.
 
On counternarcotics, another outcome of Woodside, the two sides have strengthened joint law enforcement actions and increased information sharing over the last year.  Since the resumption of counternarcotics cooperation last November, the PRC has scheduled over 55 dangerous synthetic drugs and precursor chemicals, shut down dozens of online platforms and stores, and arrested hundreds of individuals involved in the illicit chemical industry. 
 
In just the last month, the PRC has moved to arrest two different groups of individuals that were indicted in the United States, and we managed to do joint announcements on both of those.  Joint but separate.
 
All of these steps are helping us combat the global fentanyl crisis at home and contributed to the decline in overdose deaths and disruption in the supply of illicit fentanyl that we’ve seen over the last year.
 
On AI, the two sides have recognized the novel risks posed by frontier AI models and have begun to have difficult but productive conversations about AI safety and risk.  These discussions paved the way for the PRC at UNGA to co-sponsor the first-ever AI resolution proposed by the U.S. in March and, for later in the summer, the U.S. to co-sponsor the PRC’s AI resolution.
 
On climate, our countries’ envoys have also had deep and meaningful discussions over the past four years, leading to three far-ranging joint statements that have set the stage for climate commitments on greenhouse gas reductions, peak emissions, and renewable energy.  Those discussions are continuing this week, of course, at COP.
 
Equally importantly, the President intends to use this meeting to discuss areas of difference and how to manage those differences in the period ahead.  I expect the President will express deep concern over the PRC’s support for Russia’s war against Ukraine, as well as the deployment of over 10,000 DPRK troops to Russia, where they have begun engaging in combat operations with Russian forces.  We are increasingly concerned about the consequences for longer-term stability in both Europe and the Indo-Pacific of this deployment.
 
I expect the President will warn that cyber pre-positioning on civilian critical infrastructure and engaging in reckless attacks against our critical networks are unacceptable.  These actions have the potential to destabilize the bilateral relationship and lead to an even broader de-risking away from PRC technology. 
 
I expect the President will also underscore the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and express his concerns that the PRC’s increased military activities around Taiwan are destabilizing and eroding the status quo. 
 
The President may also express concern over PRC actions in the South China Sea, including PRC coast guard actions against lawful maritime operations by other South China Sea claimant countries. 
 
In his many conversations with President Xi, President Biden has consistently also underscored the critical importance of respect for human rights, and I expect he will do so again. 
 
And of course, the President will also underscore his longstanding concern with the PRC’s unfair trade policies and non-market economic practices, which have over time created an unlevel playing field for American workers. 
 
Let me pause there and see if there are any questions.  Back over to you, Michael.
 
MODERATOR:  Great.  Thank you.  We will now take some questions.  Also, just a reminder, for those of you who might have joined late, this call is under embargo until 12:30 p.m. today. 
 
Our first question is going to go to Trevor.  You should be able to unmute yourself.
 
Q    Hi.  Thanks for doing this.  What will President Biden tell President Trump about managing the China relationship?  And what will President Biden tell President Xi about managing Trump?  Thank you.
 
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Thanks for the question, Trevor.  I think I’ll stay far away from some specific comments on that and instead just say: Look, this is a difficult, complicated but consequential relationship.  And the President has been pretty clear that even amidst the competitive aspects of the relationship, we need to find a way to manage it responsibly. 
 
He’ll probably reflect over the last four years what we have found works in that sense.  Having leader-level channel of communications are an important way to do that.  The strategic channel between Director Wang and National Security Advisor Sullivan was also an important way to have difficult, low-profile conversations about the issues that matter.  And then, the working-level communications — military-to-military level operators, the law enforcement back-and-forth that restarted after Woodside — these have all been critical to lending an element of stability to the relationship, even amidst the deep differences.
 
MODERATOR:  Great.  Thank you.  Our next question is going to go to Aamer.  You should be able to unmute yourself.
 
Q    Hey, thank you.  How concerned is the President, going into this meeting, that the progress that’s been made in some of these areas that you’ve already enumerated are going to go to waste with the incoming administration, specifically with the promised tariffs that Trump has promised on the campaign trail?
 
And then secondly, can you speak to how broadly the President will speak to President Xi about these coming tariffs? Will he — in some sense, is he going to offer or, rather, ask President Xi to show some restraint himself?  Thanks.
 
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Thanks for the question.  Look, I’ll refer you to the incoming administration for any questions on what they intend to do.  We really can’t comment on that. 
 
MODERATOR:  Great.  Thank you.  Our next question is going to go to Demetri.
 
Q    Thank you.  Good morning.  Has the U.S. run out of time to impose sanctions on Chinese financial institutions to try and reduce Chinese support for Russia’s industrial or defense industrial base?  Or will President Biden warn Xi Jinping that this is his last chance to take action to avoid U.S. sanctions on financial institutions and banks?
 
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Thanks for the question, Demetri.  As you know, this has been a key topic of conversation in nearly — well, in every senior leader-level engagement, as well as those at the Cabinet level, between their counterparts, this concern we have about Chinese support for the Russian defense industrial base. 
 
Over the last four years, we have rolled out hundreds of sanctions against Chinese entities.  We have had ongoing conversations about where we see activity of concern.  We have worked to ensure that we’re cutting off mechanisms where we can.  And I think you see that reflected in some of the public statements in recent meetings between Russian and Chinese counterparts, where, you know, they are highlighting the need for better or different financial mechanisms.  We are working hard to squeeze that as much as we can. 
 
It’s not going to stop.  I think that is going to be a continuing topic of conversation, not just in this bilateral meeting, but a task for the next administration as well — how we continually work to try to limit that support for the Russian defense industrial base and, by extension, the war in Ukraine.
 
Q    Can I just ask: Have you seen any evidence that China has actually reduced its support as these other measures have been taken?
 
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Look, I think we look at the trade figures between the two countries, and we do not see a reduction in the trade of concern.  We have, I think, noted publicly where we have seen the PRC take actions that are more constructive public statements about no use of tactical nuclear weapons, for example, at the onset of the conflict.  The decision — public and what we have seen, as well, in conversations with our other partners — no provision of lethal assistance.  But still, you know, there is much more that we seek, and there are actions we’d like to see them to take.  So I expect that will be part of the conversation, not just in this meeting but in others as well. 
 
MODERATOR:  Thank you.  Our next question is going to go to Asma.  You should be able to unmute yourself.
 
Q    Hey.  Thank you, guys, for doing this.  I have another question as it relates to the incoming new administration, because I think there’s a lot of curiosity on our end about that.  I wanted to get a sense from you of how much continuity you see on China policy with some of the choices that the Trump administration has made in terms of sort of selections of Cabinet picks and just broad policy suggestions he has made. 
 
And this question comes from the fact that a number of outside experts have told me that China was one area of rather broad consensus and not as much differentiation between the first Trump term and President Biden.  So, I wanted to get a sense of how much continuity of policy you see.  Thank you.
 
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Thanks for the question.  I’m going to stick with the line: I can’t comment on what the next administration will or won’t do and what their policy direction will be.
 
MODERATOR:  Thank you.  Our next question is going to go to Patsy.
 
Q    Hi.  Thank you for doing this.  I’m going to try again.  I mean, I know you’ve said over and over you can’t answer specifically on the next administration, but can you just shed a little bit of light in terms of what could the President broadly say to President Xi Jinping in terms of future managing relations, particularly on Taiwan and the South China Sea?  I mean, we see, you know, the group of Trump appointees that signal some pretty hawkish positions on China.  Is there anything you can say?  Thanks.
 
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Look, I think the way I come at this question is: This is a tough, complicated relationship between the U.S. and China, and so whatever the next administration decides, they are going to need to find ways to manage that tough, complicated relationship. 
 
What the President will use this meeting and what I expect he will use this meeting to do is reflect on how this administration has approached it, what we see has worked, the channels of communication, the tough, private conversations, the actions that we have still taken to defend American national security.  And then, you know, the areas that I have highlighted in this conversation — Russia, cross-Strait issues, South China Sea, and cyber — are areas the next administration is going to need to think about carefully, because those are areas of deep policy difference with China, and I don’t expect that will disappear.
 
MODERATOR:  Great.  Thank you.  Our next question is going to go to Nick.
 
Q    Hey, guys.  Thanks very much.  Different topic.  As the President flies down to Lima, Xi Jinping is opening what will be the second-largest port, I believe, on this side of the Pacific Ocean, after Long Beach — a Chinese port in Peru.  This is not a new story, but the Peruvian Ambassador told me the other day that there’s not enough U.S. investment in Peru or Latin America, and the Chinese have better offers. 
 
Again, it’s not a new story, but do you believe the U.S. is already — or has already fallen behind when it comes to infrastructure development and Chinese influence in Latin America, given that’s where you’re going for this meeting?  Thanks.
 
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Nick, thanks for the question and for the shift in topic as well, I should say.
 
Look, I think Chinese infrastructure investment overseas is not a new topic.  As you point out, we’ve, in fact, seen it reduce over the last couple of years due to the challenges they’re facing both domestically but also in some of these projects overseas. 
 
So, look, I would say this administration has focused very much on how we try to bring private investment — private sector investment to bear overseas, the important impact that can have in high standards in ensuring that the terms of agreements are such that they are contributing to host countries’ long-term stability or long-term fiscal stability.  And we’ve done this through the Quad.  We’ve done this through PGI, through IPEF, through APEC, through various other acronyms that I will not bore you with, but just to say that we recognize the value of investment overseas and what an important role that plays in encouraging economic (inaudible).
 
MODERATOR:  Great.  Thank you.  Our next question is going to go to Annie.
 
Q    Hi there.  Thanks for doing this.  The President has spoken extensively about his relationship with Xi and the amount of time that they have spent together.  Can you just reflect a little bit on what the President’s mood has been like, kind of going into this meeting, which, as you pointed out, is probably their last meeting?  I mean, are they — is he a little — just, I can’t imagine — can you talk a little bit about just his mood in this moment? 

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Look, you know, without getting into specifics, I would just say that this has been and the President said publicly that he feels this is an important, consequential relationship.  And his personal management, I should say as [redacted], has been important to any progress that we have made.
 
I think he and Xi had known each other for over a decade, have had meetings with each other for over a decade, both as vice presidents and as presidents, both in China and the United States and on the margins of these multilateral meetings.  These engagements are not easy.  The conversations are not easy.  But as the President has said, in fact, at Woodside, they speak candidly and forthrightly to each other, and there is — that frankness has been important in managing the relationship. 
 
I think as the President heads into this meeting, he’s going to be focused, as he has been in every other engagement, on delivering results for the American people.
 
MODERATOR:  Thank you.  Our next question is going to go to Aurelia.
 
Q    Hi.  And thank you so much for taking my question.  I
wanted to know: Has the incoming administration gotten any classified briefing on the relationship with China, or have they requested any?
 
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  You know, I think I’d refer you to the transition teams for any questions about that.
 
MODERATOR:  Thank you.  Our next question is going to go to Phelim. 
 
Q    Hi.  Good morning, everybody.  Can you hear me?
 
MODERATOR:  Yep.
 
Q    Hi.  Thanks so much.  You’ve given a really good list of things that — the achievements of the administration vis-à-vis the relationship with China, the list of the outstanding issues that they’re concerned about. 
 
My question is this: What are, like, the one or two sort of top items that President Biden would like to get some kind of agreement on that he can bring home from this meeting in APEC?  It’s his last meeting with Xi.  What is on his list of things he wants to get done?
 
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Thanks for the question, Phelim.  I think, look, these meetings are different than many of the bilateral engagements.  There’s not a long list of outcomes or deliverables.  We did work hard at Woodside to focus in on three different issue sets — the mil-mil, counternarcotics, and the AI piece — and focused in on those small steps forward to reestablish channels to ensure that we were able to deliver results in those areas. 
 
I think this meeting will reflect on the progress to date, and we’ll expect to try to continue to ensure that we’ve got those channels working, law enforcement and mil-mil in particular, which we see as critical to underpinning stability in the relationship in the period ahead.
 
MODERATOR:  Thank you.  Our next question will go to Michael Martina.
 
Q    Hi.  Thanks for doing this.  You know, the Biden administration has made a point for a long time now that it was held in high priority the wrongfully detained.  So, given that this is likely to be their last meeting, is President Biden concerned about making progress, any kind of last-ditch effort to get some of these wrongfully detained out?  I’m not asking you whether that will actually happen, I guess, but whether or not the President is trying to make that happen before he leaves office.  Thank you.
 
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Thanks so much for the question, Michael.  I would — thank you, and thank you for flagging this issue.
 
As he has in all meetings with Xi, I expect that he will call for the release of U.S. citizens that are wrongfully detained or under exit bans in China.  As you all know, that has been a personal priority of the President during his time in office.
 
MODERATOR:  Great.  Thank you very much.  And thank you all today for joining.  Just as a reminder, this call is on background, attributed to senior administration officials and under embargo until 12:30 p.m.
 
If we didn’t get to your question, please feel free to reach out to myself or the NSC press team distro, and we’ll be happy to take it.  Thank you very much, and have a great rest of your day. 
 
10:26 A.M. EST      
 
 
 
 

The post Background Press Call on the President’s Meeting with President Xi Jinping in Peru appeared first on The White House.

Via Teleconference

10:05 A.M. EST
 
MODERATOR:  Hi, everyone.  Thank you so much for joining today’s call.  This is Michael Feldman with the NSC press team. 
 
I’m just going to start up top with the ground rules.  Today’s call is attributed to — on background, attributed to senior administration officials and will be held under embargo until 12:30 p.m. Eastern. 
 
Today’s call is to preview the upcoming bilateral meeting between President Biden and President Xi at the APEC Summit in Peru.
 
For awareness and not for attribution, today’s speakers are [senior administration official] and [senior administration official].  With that, I will turn it over to [senior administration official] to provide opening remarks.
 
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Great.  Thank you so much.  And thanks so much for joining today.  I’m cognizant there are many news stories.  I’m glad you chose to spend a bit of time with us today.
 
On November 16, President Biden will meet with President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China on the sidelines of the 2024 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Lima, Peru.  We’ve been working towards this meeting since National Security Advisor Sullivan visited Beijing in late August.  And as you’ll recall, he briefed the press at that time that we expected the two leaders to meet later this year on the margins of either APEC or G20.
 
This will be the third in-person meeting between the two leaders since President Biden entered into office.  They previously met in Bali, in 2022, on the margins of the G20, and at Woodside, in 2023, on the margins of APEC, exactly one year and one day ago from this upcoming meeting.
 
The two presidents have known each other for more than a decade, dating back to when they were both vice presidents, and have spent many hours in meetings together.  We expect this will be their last meeting as presidents. 
 
With that in mind, we expect the President will use the opportunity to take stock of efforts to responsibly manage competition over the last four years, how the two countries have advanced areas of shared interest, and, even amidst deep differences and intense competition, have worked to do so.
 
Throughout his time in office, President Biden has emphasized the importance of responsibly managing one of the world’s most consequential relationships.  And from the very beginning of this administration, four years ago, President Biden made it clear the United States would advance and protect our interests at home and abroad.  And the framework of this administration’s China policy — invest, align, and compete — has remained constant over the last four years.
 
The President has prioritized investments and sources of U.S. strength at home, strengthened our alliances abroad, and taken commonsense measures to protect U.S. technology and national security.
 
As mentioned before, at the same time, the President has demonstrated that our two countries can and must manage our differences and prevent competition from veering into conflict or confrontation by maintaining open lines of communication and advancing cooperation in areas of shared interest. 
 
I expect President Biden will want to take stock of the progress we have made in a number of areas since the Woodside Summit last year.  That cooperation can be an important stabilizing force in the relationship.  For example, over the last year, the two sides have resumed military-to-military communications at all levels.  At the senior level, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Brown, Secretary of Defense Austin, and the INDOPACOM commander have met or had telephone calls with their PRC counterparts over the last year.
 
The U.S. and the PRC also restarted the Defense Policy Coordination Talks in January of 2024 and have carried out agreed-upon defense engagements since, to include the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement, MMCA, which is an operator-to-operator level talks that was just held earlier this month, and Crisis Communications and Prevention Working Group that was held in late October. 
 
These discussions are important to avoid misunderstanding and miscalculation.  And for the first time this year, I should add as well, both sides pre-notified their respective ICBM launches.
 
President Biden has made clear and will continue to emphasize the importance of maintaining military-to-military communications at all times and especially during times of heightened tension.
 
On counternarcotics, another outcome of Woodside, the two sides have strengthened joint law enforcement actions and increased information sharing over the last year.  Since the resumption of counternarcotics cooperation last November, the PRC has scheduled over 55 dangerous synthetic drugs and precursor chemicals, shut down dozens of online platforms and stores, and arrested hundreds of individuals involved in the illicit chemical industry. 
 
In just the last month, the PRC has moved to arrest two different groups of individuals that were indicted in the United States, and we managed to do joint announcements on both of those.  Joint but separate.
 
All of these steps are helping us combat the global fentanyl crisis at home and contributed to the decline in overdose deaths and disruption in the supply of illicit fentanyl that we’ve seen over the last year.
 
On AI, the two sides have recognized the novel risks posed by frontier AI models and have begun to have difficult but productive conversations about AI safety and risk.  These discussions paved the way for the PRC at UNGA to co-sponsor the first-ever AI resolution proposed by the U.S. in March and, for later in the summer, the U.S. to co-sponsor the PRC’s AI resolution.
 
On climate, our countries’ envoys have also had deep and meaningful discussions over the past four years, leading to three far-ranging joint statements that have set the stage for climate commitments on greenhouse gas reductions, peak emissions, and renewable energy.  Those discussions are continuing this week, of course, at COP.
 
Equally importantly, the President intends to use this meeting to discuss areas of difference and how to manage those differences in the period ahead.  I expect the President will express deep concern over the PRC’s support for Russia’s war against Ukraine, as well as the deployment of over 10,000 DPRK troops to Russia, where they have begun engaging in combat operations with Russian forces.  We are increasingly concerned about the consequences for longer-term stability in both Europe and the Indo-Pacific of this deployment.
 
I expect the President will warn that cyber pre-positioning on civilian critical infrastructure and engaging in reckless attacks against our critical networks are unacceptable.  These actions have the potential to destabilize the bilateral relationship and lead to an even broader de-risking away from PRC technology. 
 
I expect the President will also underscore the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and express his concerns that the PRC’s increased military activities around Taiwan are destabilizing and eroding the status quo. 
 
The President may also express concern over PRC actions in the South China Sea, including PRC coast guard actions against lawful maritime operations by other South China Sea claimant countries. 
 
In his many conversations with President Xi, President Biden has consistently also underscored the critical importance of respect for human rights, and I expect he will do so again. 
 
And of course, the President will also underscore his longstanding concern with the PRC’s unfair trade policies and non-market economic practices, which have over time created an unlevel playing field for American workers. 
 
Let me pause there and see if there are any questions.  Back over to you, Michael.
 
MODERATOR:  Great.  Thank you.  We will now take some questions.  Also, just a reminder, for those of you who might have joined late, this call is under embargo until 12:30 p.m. today. 
 
Our first question is going to go to Trevor.  You should be able to unmute yourself.
 
Q    Hi.  Thanks for doing this.  What will President Biden tell President Trump about managing the China relationship?  And what will President Biden tell President Xi about managing Trump?  Thank you.
 
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Thanks for the question, Trevor.  I think I’ll stay far away from some specific comments on that and instead just say: Look, this is a difficult, complicated but consequential relationship.  And the President has been pretty clear that even amidst the competitive aspects of the relationship, we need to find a way to manage it responsibly. 
 
He’ll probably reflect over the last four years what we have found works in that sense.  Having leader-level channel of communications are an important way to do that.  The strategic channel between Director Wang and National Security Advisor Sullivan was also an important way to have difficult, low-profile conversations about the issues that matter.  And then, the working-level communications — military-to-military level operators, the law enforcement back-and-forth that restarted after Woodside — these have all been critical to lending an element of stability to the relationship, even amidst the deep differences.
 
MODERATOR:  Great.  Thank you.  Our next question is going to go to Aamer.  You should be able to unmute yourself.
 
Q    Hey, thank you.  How concerned is the President, going into this meeting, that the progress that’s been made in some of these areas that you’ve already enumerated are going to go to waste with the incoming administration, specifically with the promised tariffs that Trump has promised on the campaign trail?
 
And then secondly, can you speak to how broadly the President will speak to President Xi about these coming tariffs? Will he — in some sense, is he going to offer or, rather, ask President Xi to show some restraint himself?  Thanks.
 
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Thanks for the question.  Look, I’ll refer you to the incoming administration for any questions on what they intend to do.  We really can’t comment on that. 
 
MODERATOR:  Great.  Thank you.  Our next question is going to go to Demetri.
 
Q    Thank you.  Good morning.  Has the U.S. run out of time to impose sanctions on Chinese financial institutions to try and reduce Chinese support for Russia’s industrial or defense industrial base?  Or will President Biden warn Xi Jinping that this is his last chance to take action to avoid U.S. sanctions on financial institutions and banks?
 
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Thanks for the question, Demetri.  As you know, this has been a key topic of conversation in nearly — well, in every senior leader-level engagement, as well as those at the Cabinet level, between their counterparts, this concern we have about Chinese support for the Russian defense industrial base. 
 
Over the last four years, we have rolled out hundreds of sanctions against Chinese entities.  We have had ongoing conversations about where we see activity of concern.  We have worked to ensure that we’re cutting off mechanisms where we can.  And I think you see that reflected in some of the public statements in recent meetings between Russian and Chinese counterparts, where, you know, they are highlighting the need for better or different financial mechanisms.  We are working hard to squeeze that as much as we can. 
 
It’s not going to stop.  I think that is going to be a continuing topic of conversation, not just in this bilateral meeting, but a task for the next administration as well — how we continually work to try to limit that support for the Russian defense industrial base and, by extension, the war in Ukraine.
 
Q    Can I just ask: Have you seen any evidence that China has actually reduced its support as these other measures have been taken?
 
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Look, I think we look at the trade figures between the two countries, and we do not see a reduction in the trade of concern.  We have, I think, noted publicly where we have seen the PRC take actions that are more constructive public statements about no use of tactical nuclear weapons, for example, at the onset of the conflict.  The decision — public and what we have seen, as well, in conversations with our other partners — no provision of lethal assistance.  But still, you know, there is much more that we seek, and there are actions we’d like to see them to take.  So I expect that will be part of the conversation, not just in this meeting but in others as well. 
 
MODERATOR:  Thank you.  Our next question is going to go to Asma.  You should be able to unmute yourself.
 
Q    Hey.  Thank you, guys, for doing this.  I have another question as it relates to the incoming new administration, because I think there’s a lot of curiosity on our end about that.  I wanted to get a sense from you of how much continuity you see on China policy with some of the choices that the Trump administration has made in terms of sort of selections of Cabinet picks and just broad policy suggestions he has made. 
 
And this question comes from the fact that a number of outside experts have told me that China was one area of rather broad consensus and not as much differentiation between the first Trump term and President Biden.  So, I wanted to get a sense of how much continuity of policy you see.  Thank you.
 
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Thanks for the question.  I’m going to stick with the line: I can’t comment on what the next administration will or won’t do and what their policy direction will be.
 
MODERATOR:  Thank you.  Our next question is going to go to Patsy.
 
Q    Hi.  Thank you for doing this.  I’m going to try again.  I mean, I know you’ve said over and over you can’t answer specifically on the next administration, but can you just shed a little bit of light in terms of what could the President broadly say to President Xi Jinping in terms of future managing relations, particularly on Taiwan and the South China Sea?  I mean, we see, you know, the group of Trump appointees that signal some pretty hawkish positions on China.  Is there anything you can say?  Thanks.
 
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Look, I think the way I come at this question is: This is a tough, complicated relationship between the U.S. and China, and so whatever the next administration decides, they are going to need to find ways to manage that tough, complicated relationship. 
 
What the President will use this meeting and what I expect he will use this meeting to do is reflect on how this administration has approached it, what we see has worked, the channels of communication, the tough, private conversations, the actions that we have still taken to defend American national security.  And then, you know, the areas that I have highlighted in this conversation — Russia, cross-Strait issues, South China Sea, and cyber — are areas the next administration is going to need to think about carefully, because those are areas of deep policy difference with China, and I don’t expect that will disappear.
 
MODERATOR:  Great.  Thank you.  Our next question is going to go to Nick.
 
Q    Hey, guys.  Thanks very much.  Different topic.  As the President flies down to Lima, Xi Jinping is opening what will be the second-largest port, I believe, on this side of the Pacific Ocean, after Long Beach — a Chinese port in Peru.  This is not a new story, but the Peruvian Ambassador told me the other day that there’s not enough U.S. investment in Peru or Latin America, and the Chinese have better offers. 
 
Again, it’s not a new story, but do you believe the U.S. is already — or has already fallen behind when it comes to infrastructure development and Chinese influence in Latin America, given that’s where you’re going for this meeting?  Thanks.
 
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Nick, thanks for the question and for the shift in topic as well, I should say.
 
Look, I think Chinese infrastructure investment overseas is not a new topic.  As you point out, we’ve, in fact, seen it reduce over the last couple of years due to the challenges they’re facing both domestically but also in some of these projects overseas. 
 
So, look, I would say this administration has focused very much on how we try to bring private investment — private sector investment to bear overseas, the important impact that can have in high standards in ensuring that the terms of agreements are such that they are contributing to host countries’ long-term stability or long-term fiscal stability.  And we’ve done this through the Quad.  We’ve done this through PGI, through IPEF, through APEC, through various other acronyms that I will not bore you with, but just to say that we recognize the value of investment overseas and what an important role that plays in encouraging economic (inaudible).
 
MODERATOR:  Great.  Thank you.  Our next question is going to go to Annie.
 
Q    Hi there.  Thanks for doing this.  The President has spoken extensively about his relationship with Xi and the amount of time that they have spent together.  Can you just reflect a little bit on what the President’s mood has been like, kind of going into this meeting, which, as you pointed out, is probably their last meeting?  I mean, are they — is he a little — just, I can’t imagine — can you talk a little bit about just his mood in this moment? 

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Look, you know, without getting into specifics, I would just say that this has been and the President said publicly that he feels this is an important, consequential relationship.  And his personal management, I should say as [redacted], has been important to any progress that we have made.
 
I think he and Xi had known each other for over a decade, have had meetings with each other for over a decade, both as vice presidents and as presidents, both in China and the United States and on the margins of these multilateral meetings.  These engagements are not easy.  The conversations are not easy.  But as the President has said, in fact, at Woodside, they speak candidly and forthrightly to each other, and there is — that frankness has been important in managing the relationship. 
 
I think as the President heads into this meeting, he’s going to be focused, as he has been in every other engagement, on delivering results for the American people.
 
MODERATOR:  Thank you.  Our next question is going to go to Aurelia.
 
Q    Hi.  And thank you so much for taking my question.  I
wanted to know: Has the incoming administration gotten any classified briefing on the relationship with China, or have they requested any?
 
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  You know, I think I’d refer you to the transition teams for any questions about that.
 
MODERATOR:  Thank you.  Our next question is going to go to Phelim. 
 
Q    Hi.  Good morning, everybody.  Can you hear me?
 
MODERATOR:  Yep.
 
Q    Hi.  Thanks so much.  You’ve given a really good list of things that — the achievements of the administration vis-à-vis the relationship with China, the list of the outstanding issues that they’re concerned about. 
 
My question is this: What are, like, the one or two sort of top items that President Biden would like to get some kind of agreement on that he can bring home from this meeting in APEC?  It’s his last meeting with Xi.  What is on his list of things he wants to get done?
 
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Thanks for the question, Phelim.  I think, look, these meetings are different than many of the bilateral engagements.  There’s not a long list of outcomes or deliverables.  We did work hard at Woodside to focus in on three different issue sets — the mil-mil, counternarcotics, and the AI piece — and focused in on those small steps forward to reestablish channels to ensure that we were able to deliver results in those areas. 
 
I think this meeting will reflect on the progress to date, and we’ll expect to try to continue to ensure that we’ve got those channels working, law enforcement and mil-mil in particular, which we see as critical to underpinning stability in the relationship in the period ahead.
 
MODERATOR:  Thank you.  Our next question will go to Michael Martina.
 
Q    Hi.  Thanks for doing this.  You know, the Biden administration has made a point for a long time now that it was held in high priority the wrongfully detained.  So, given that this is likely to be their last meeting, is President Biden concerned about making progress, any kind of last-ditch effort to get some of these wrongfully detained out?  I’m not asking you whether that will actually happen, I guess, but whether or not the President is trying to make that happen before he leaves office.  Thank you.
 
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Thanks so much for the question, Michael.  I would — thank you, and thank you for flagging this issue.
 
As he has in all meetings with Xi, I expect that he will call for the release of U.S. citizens that are wrongfully detained or under exit bans in China.  As you all know, that has been a personal priority of the President during his time in office.
 
MODERATOR:  Great.  Thank you very much.  And thank you all today for joining.  Just as a reminder, this call is on background, attributed to senior administration officials and under embargo until 12:30 p.m.
 
If we didn’t get to your question, please feel free to reach out to myself or the NSC press team distro, and we’ll be happy to take it.  Thank you very much, and have a great rest of your day. 
 
10:26 A.M. EST      
 
 
 
 

The post Background Press Call on the President’s Meeting with President Xi Jinping in Peru appeared first on The White House.

East Room

10:09 A.M. EST

THE FIRST LADY:  Hello.  (Applause.)  (Laughs.)  Hey, Kate.  Hey, Randi.  (Applause.)  Thank you.  Hello!  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you very much.  Please be seated.  (Applause.)

Well, Joe, that started our day off right, didn’t it?  (Laughter.)

So, welcome to the White House.

Several years ago, a student of mine came running into my classroom and breathlessly said that she had seen me on TV.  (Laughter.)  She had said, “Mom!  Mom!  That’s my English teacher!”  And her mother said, “That’s not your English teacher.  That’s the second lady.”

So, when Joe was elected as vice president, people assumed that I would stop teaching.  But, you know, I just couldn’t give it up.  I am first, foremost, and forever a teacher.  (Applause.)  So, I — I did both: Wh- — the White House and teaching.

In the morning, I’d stand in front of my community college students for th- — (applause) — (laughs) — for — for their 8:00 a.m. English comp class.  Actually, I’m still doing it.  (Laughter.)  And by — and by the evening, I was at a White House state dinner or boarding Air Force Two.  

Then, one day in 2010, some White House advisers were trying to figure to — out and determine, you know, who could highlight the role of community colleges in our economy.  Then someone had this revelation — you know, so- — (laugher) — “Wait, doesn’t the second lady work at a community college?”  (Laughter.)

So, this might be surprising, but I think I had gotten so good at stitching t- — the two worlds together, and sort of hiding the seams, that I never considered using my experience to become an advocate.  But I said yes. 

And at the time, I called community colleges America’s best-kept secret.  And I knew that they deserved to be seen and celebrated and championed at every level of government. 

And Joe knows this too.  So, when he became president, Joe put community colleges front and center in his workforce strategy.  (Applause.) 

And from day one as first lady, I knew that community colleges would be a priority for me.  So, part of that means pushing to make them tuition free.  And — (applause).   

So, I’ve been so proud to work alongside dedicated leaders like my friend Martha Kanter — (applause) — where’s Martha? —  Walter Bumphus, and Jee Hāng Lee, who have put — who have been dedicated partners in this work.

So, today, less than a decade after we launched the effort to make cuni- — community college free, 34 states — plus Washington, D.C. — and counting offer tuition-free community college and job training programs.  (Applause.) 

We came close to making community college free for everyone across the country, but a few senators — I’m not going to name them — (laughter) — blocked our way.  But that wasn’t the end.  This movement continues to gain momentum.  We must keep fighting for free community college.  (Applause.) 

As first lady, I’ve also focused on strengthening the pathways between classrooms and careers.  Nearly — and you probably all know this — but nearly 60 percent of graduating high school students don’t go directly to a four-year degree.  We know that — 6 out of every 10 students.  Some will start working.  Some will go to community college or technical colleges.  Some won’t even know what they want to do next. 

So, we continue to keep transforming education to bridge the gap between what students learn and the careers that they can enter. 

We’ve had amazing partners in high schools across the country and in advocates like Becky Pringle and Randi Weingarten.  (Applause.)

Together, we’re making sure that high school graduation isn’t a s- — y- — a sudden halt in a student’s education but rather like the seamless step forward, whether that’s on a college campus, a registered apprenticeship, or another career opportunity.  And we’ve partnered with the leaders of unions and businesses and school districts, colleges, and universities and — to match what — local employers and the workers that they need. 

And that’s what we’ve ab- — been able to do with our Investing in America Workforce Hubs.  And it’s a model that communities across the country can replicate.

Community colleges are no longer America’s best-kept secret.  Thanks to the progress of Joe’s administration and what they’ve created, we’re on our way to making them America’s best-kept promise.  Thank you.  (Applause.) 

But there’s more ground to cover, and it will take all of us to get there.  If we work together, we can build a future where more high school students will graduate with credits and skills that they can apply to their future careers, where community college is free for every student in every state of America, and where all students have a clear pathway to jobs that pay well right in the communities where they grew up.

This semester is coming to a close.  My students are starting to write their last assignments, and they’re signing up for new classes, or some are going to graduate. 

Joe and I are also preparing for what’s coming next.  (Laughter.) 

(The president makes the sign of the cross.)  (Laughter and applause.) 

It has been the honor of our lives to serve in the White House and to work alongside, really, all of you in this room.  So, as you keep pushing forward to make our country shine with opportunity, know that you will always have a partner in us. 

And now, I’d like to introduce a longtime champion of our nation’s students.  Not only has Joe always supported my career as an educator, but as president, he wakes up every day with a mission to lift up all Americans through the endless possibility of education. 

Please welcome your president, my husband and hero, Joe Biden.  (Applause.) 

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you.  (Applause.)  Thank you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.  Thank all of you.  (Applause.)  Please. 

I’m Joe Biden.  I’m Jill Biden’s husband.  (Laughter.)  And you can see she doesn’t have any strong notions or ideas.  (Laughter.)

You know, teaching is not what Jill does; it’s who she is — and I mean that — like many of you teachers.  It’s — it’s just built in her DNA.  She was surprised when we got elected vice president, and she said she wanted to keep teaching.  I said, “Of course.”  She looked at me like, “Really?  You’re going to do that?”  And we did it. 

But the point is that this is a passion.  It’s a passion for Jill.  And the way I look at it is it’s a simple proposition: How can we be the greatest nation in the world and not have the best education system in the world?  (Applause.)  No, I mean it.  Think about it.  It’s pretty straightforward.

So, I’m honored to host this White House Classroom of [to] Career Summit.  

Look, 15 years ago, when Jill hosted the first one during our vice presidency, to state the obvious, as I said, what Jill is — for Jill, being an educator is just what she is.  Period.  And I believe the work she’s done to connect students and good-paying jobs will prove one of the most important efforts of our presidency, and I mean it.

Look, that’s why we’re all here today.  And I want to thank Congressman Norcross of New Jersey.  I keep reminding — my Jersey guys, we do really well in Jersey.  Jill is a Jersey girl, born and raised.  (Laughter.)  And I tell him, though, there was actually a case a long time ago.  Delaware is the second smallest state in the nation, and we own the Delaware River up to the high-water mark in New Jersey.  (Laughter.)  It was a Supreme Court decision, for real.  And so, I’m — I just want you to know.  That’s why we’re so close.  (Laughter.)  You just step off of — (laughs) — anyway.  (Laughter.)  You’re a good man, pal.  You really are.

And to members of my Cabinet who are here, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you — and leaders of business, education, unions, philanthropy, nonprofits, and more, you know, for being here and for your leadership.  And I mean it sincerely.

You know, when we came into office, the pandemic was raging and the economy was reeling.  And from day one, I was determined not only to vaccinate the nation, to deliver immediate economic relief for the folks who needed it the most, but I also determined to transform the way our economy works for everyone, to write a new economic playbook — and I mean it sincerely — a new economic playbook from — build the economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not from the top down. 

My dad used to have an expression.  He’d say, “You know, Joey, when you talk about trickle-down economics, not a whole hell of a lot trickles down on our kitchen table.”

Well, when we do that, the poor have a ladder up and the middle class do well, and the wealthy still will be able to do very well.  And we all do well.

It’s a playbook based on a value set that my dad taught me.  He used to say — and I mean this sincerely — “Joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck.  It’s about your dignity.  It’s about your place in the community.  It’s about being able to look your kid in the eye and say, ‘Honey, it’s going to be okay,’ and mean it — and mean it.”  It matters. 

Well, not everyone has felt the progress, because it takes time.  We’ve emerged from a crisis.  We have the strongest economy in the world.  More to — much more to do.  Working families and the middle class are — are the center of a strong, equitable, and sustainable recovery. 

And the big reason why is that I call the Investing in American agenda.  You know, it’s a page from our economic playbook that invests in all of America and all Americans, creating pathways for millions of good-paying jobs being created in our economy. 

You know, the key pieces of the Investing in America include historic laws that I’ve signed, historic investments in modernizing our roads and bridges, our ports, airports, public transit. 

We’re — we’re replacing poisonous lead pipes.  We’re delivering clean water to every American.  It’s taking time — it’s going to, but it’s t- — beginning.  It’s real.  It’s there. 

We’re delivering affordable, high-speed Internet and so much more. 

Roosevelt talked about the need to electrify America during that (inaudible).  Well, how can — how can you have access to being able to participate in everything — in fact, you don’t have access to affordable Internet?  You don’t have access to — anyway.  Don’t get me going.  (Laughter.) 

But — but, look, we’re also making sure that the supply chain — I don’t think Americans heard much about supply chains before we came to office — (applause) — but the supply chain st- — starts in America.  We can no longer — for the longest time — for the longest time, corporate America decided to export the jobs because of cheaper labor and import the product.  Well, not us.  We’ve changed that dynamic. 

For example, semiconductors — those little computer chips, smaller than the tip of my little finger, you know, they power everything from our smartphones to automobiles to weapon systems.  America invented those chips.  We, in the United States, invented them.  We modernized them.  We did all the work on it, but we stopped making them.  We used to have over 40 percent of the market, and we got down to virtually none of it. 

But not anymore.  Today, we’re making once-in-a-generation investments in American science and innovation that are building chip factories all across America, and they’re going to be creating tens of thousands of good-paying jobs — and that’s not hyperbole.  But it takes time to build them. 

The one thing we — you know, I was all excited about how much we’ve invested and how much is g- — coming, but it’s taken time.  You have to build those so-called fabs.  These, quote, “fabs” — these factories to build these things are as long — as big as football fields.  And guess what?  They pay about an average of $105,000 a year, and you don’t need a college degree to get there.  And that doesn’t even count the tens of billions of dollars being spent to build these facilities and attract other businesses. 

And I signed the most significant climate law ever in American history but — in the history of the world.  (Applause.)

The congressman will tell you, we were told we couldn’t get it done, but we got it done.  We got it done. 

And, you know, it’s leading us into a clean energy future with even more good-paying clean energy jobs and American workers.

As a result of these laws and other things we’ve done — I won’t take all your time, but the key actions — the end result is: We’ve created, in the four years we’ve been — almost four years we’ve been here, we’ve created 16 million new jobs — brand-new jobs — since I took office — (applause) — and in — the most in any single U.S. presidential term.

Inflation is at 2.6 percent — close to the pre-pandemic rate. 

Unemployment is down to 4.1 percent — longest stretch for a long, long time, that low.

Despite the critics saying we had to lower ambitions to get the economy going, we’ve attracted off the sidelines from private enterprise over $1 trillion — $1 trillion in private investment in clean energy and manufacturing that are creating good-paying jobs and building factories here in America, where they belong.

Now, all this historic investment is happening in every part of the country.  You know, you may re- — recall saying, “I’m a president for all Americans no matter who they voted for.”  Well, keeping that commitment, the majority of the investments are actually in red states, not blue states, because they got hurt the most by the policies early on — all those factories shutting down. 

How many times did you come from places where you’d have, “Mom and my grandpop and grandmom worked in that factory, and my mom and dad worked there, my — but I got to move, Mom, because there’s no job.  The factory is gone”?  They got hurt very badly.  It takes away the soul of the — of community.

And we’re making sure these Americans have access to good-paying jobs that are being created. 

“Buy America” has been the law of the land since the ‘30s, which hardly anybody knew, hardly anybody paid attention to. 

When Franklin Roosevelt was trying to make it fair for i- — for unions to be able to organize so the business couldn’t just crush them because they started, there was a provision in the law in the early ‘30s that said when a president is authorized by Congress to spend money on a project, he has to do it — two things: He has to use that money to hire American workers, and he has to use American products.  Well, this administration — past administrations failed to do that.  Like I said, so much was exported overseas.  Well, not — not on my watch. 

My administration buys American.  We’re making sure the federal projects we’re building — roads, bridges, highways, and more — are getting made with American products, built by American workers, and creating good-paying American jobs — jobs that don’t require a four-year college degree, jobs you can raise a family on.  In fact, my administration is requiring many of these kinds of projects to pay what — a union wage called a Davis-Bacon prevailing wage. 

We’re expanding registered apprenticeships, resulting in hiring more than 1 million apprentices since we’ve come into office.  Remember, business came along and said, “We’ll do the apprenticeships.”  (Laughs.)  Yeah, right.  (Laughter.)  Well, guess what?  They’re not.

A lot of folks don’t realize that an apprenticeship is like earning a college degree.  You know, you spend up to four, five years training — wh- — you get paid while you’re doing it — to learn a trade to lead you to a good-paying job, like going to school before you can be registered in that particular expertise.  They’re among the best workers in the world. 

Today, I’m proud to announce that for the first time ever, the number of women in apprenticeships has reached 100,000 — (applause) — 100,000 — three times the number from a decade ago. 

When I took office, not a single state had a registered apprenticeship program for teachers.  Today, 46 states, plus Puerto Rico and D.C., have launched registered apprenticeship programs for teachers.  (Applause.)

Some will say I did that because I feared for my life, but — (laughter) — but not true.  I wanted to do it anyway.  (Laughter.)

I’m also proud to announce that we’ve committed more than $80 billion — $80 billion — toward strengthening and expanding our workforce. 

As Jill just described, that includes supporting free community college programs so students and workers can train for good jobs without the burden of student debt. 

It also described what we launched — the Workforce Hubs, where we collaborate with local leaders, community colleges, unions, local businesses to train and connect Americans to good-paying jobs.  And it’s good for students and workers.  It grows the economy for everyone. 

I know I’m listed as the most pro-union president in American history.  I’m very proud of that.  But guess what?  (Applause.)  Guess what, folks?  Business is now acknowledging tha- — it helps them too.

I had Treasury Department do a study: What’s the effect of focusing on unions?  Everybody — everybody’s standard of living is raised — everybody’s. 

We’ve also — really proud to have launched the American Climate Corps, you know, patterned after the Peace Corps and the AmericaCorps [AmeriCorps], to put tens of thousands of young people on a path to good-paying clean energy apprenticeships and jobs.  That’s the future.  

And with the support of the private sector, we’re also bringing business into the high schools so younger students can learn about and train for good-paying jobs, including those that that don’t require a four-year degree, as Jill pointed out. 

There’s so much more that you’ll learn about at today’s summit.  And you — many of you will bring more information as well.  But, look, it really matters. 

Let me close with this.  You heard Jill speak about incredible students.  Well, joining us today is another American worker who embodies the incredible character that we see all over the country: Maurice Bogard, Jr. — Maurice, I’m going to ask you to come up here in a second — a father of two young children, one of whom I work for.  (Laughter.) 

He — he’s going to actually come up?  (Applause.)

(Mr. Bogard and two children join the president on stage.)  (Applause.)

Now, look, Maurice is from Cleveland, Ohio.  From the day his children were born, he had a survival mindset to do whatever he could to improve the positive cir- — circumstances for his family: 12-to-16-hour days at multiple jobs, even working out of town for months at a time just to get by, just — it meant fewer hours with his children, as well, and his family. 

Last year, his sister, who is also with him today — sis, stand up — (applause) — every man like me needs a strong sister — (laughter) — I have one — sent him to a link to a — about a pre-apprentice program where you can learn a trade, funded by my American Re- — by the American Rescue Plan that I signed into law as soon as I came to office.  Well, Maurice signed up.  Within hours, he had an appointment.  He soon started a four-week training program to connect him with his local IBEW, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. 

Today, he’s on his way to becoming a journeyman electrician, working — (applause) — working at the stadium of his hometown baseball team, the Cleveland Guardians.  (Laughter).

MR. BOGARD:  Yes, sir.

THE PRESIDENT:  A good-paying job with good hours, good benefits, and a lifelong career and a sense of dignity and pride to be the father he always wanted to be.

MR. BOGARD:  Yes, sir.

THE PRESIDENT:  And it’s not just him.  Millions of workers and families have more opportunity today than they did four years ago in an economy — economy that’s growing from the middle out and bottom up. 

(Addressing Mr. Bogard.)  You — he can — put him down.  He can do whatever he wants.  (Laughter.)

(Addressing child.)  All you got to do — look, you can do anything you want, pal.  (Laughter.)  Okay?  You want to make a speech later, you can.  All right?  (Laughter.)  All right. 

An economy where everyone has a fair shot, we leave nobody behind, and invest in America and all Americans — that’s what we’ve done together by reminding ourselves who we are. 

For Lord’s sake, we’re the United States of America.  There is nothing — I mean this from the bottom of my heart — there’s nothing beyond our capacity when we do it together.  And there’s no b- — group I’d rather be doing it with than all of you.

So, God bless you all.  And may God protect our troops.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.  (Applause.)

10:33 A.M. EST

The post Remarks by President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden at the Classroom to Career Summit appeared first on The White House.

East Room

10:09 A.M. EST

THE FIRST LADY:  Hello.  (Applause.)  (Laughs.)  Hey, Kate.  Hey, Randi.  (Applause.)  Thank you.  Hello!  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you very much.  Please be seated.  (Applause.)

Well, Joe, that started our day off right, didn’t it?  (Laughter.)

So, welcome to the White House.

Several years ago, a student of mine came running into my classroom and breathlessly said that she had seen me on TV.  (Laughter.)  She had said, “Mom!  Mom!  That’s my English teacher!”  And her mother said, “That’s not your English teacher.  That’s the second lady.”

So, when Joe was elected as vice president, people assumed that I would stop teaching.  But, you know, I just couldn’t give it up.  I am first, foremost, and forever a teacher.  (Applause.)  So, I — I did both: Wh- — the White House and teaching.

In the morning, I’d stand in front of my community college students for th- — (applause) — (laughs) — for — for their 8:00 a.m. English comp class.  Actually, I’m still doing it.  (Laughter.)  And by — and by the evening, I was at a White House state dinner or boarding Air Force Two.  

Then, one day in 2010, some White House advisers were trying to figure to — out and determine, you know, who could highlight the role of community colleges in our economy.  Then someone had this revelation — you know, so- — (laugher) — “Wait, doesn’t the second lady work at a community college?”  (Laughter.)

So, this might be surprising, but I think I had gotten so good at stitching t- — the two worlds together, and sort of hiding the seams, that I never considered using my experience to become an advocate.  But I said yes. 

And at the time, I called community colleges America’s best-kept secret.  And I knew that they deserved to be seen and celebrated and championed at every level of government. 

And Joe knows this too.  So, when he became president, Joe put community colleges front and center in his workforce strategy.  (Applause.) 

And from day one as first lady, I knew that community colleges would be a priority for me.  So, part of that means pushing to make them tuition free.  And — (applause).   

So, I’ve been so proud to work alongside dedicated leaders like my friend Martha Kanter — (applause) — where’s Martha? —  Walter Bumphus, and Jee Hāng Lee, who have put — who have been dedicated partners in this work.

So, today, less than a decade after we launched the effort to make cuni- — community college free, 34 states — plus Washington, D.C. — and counting offer tuition-free community college and job training programs.  (Applause.) 

We came close to making community college free for everyone across the country, but a few senators — I’m not going to name them — (laughter) — blocked our way.  But that wasn’t the end.  This movement continues to gain momentum.  We must keep fighting for free community college.  (Applause.) 

As first lady, I’ve also focused on strengthening the pathways between classrooms and careers.  Nearly — and you probably all know this — but nearly 60 percent of graduating high school students don’t go directly to a four-year degree.  We know that — 6 out of every 10 students.  Some will start working.  Some will go to community college or technical colleges.  Some won’t even know what they want to do next. 

So, we continue to keep transforming education to bridge the gap between what students learn and the careers that they can enter. 

We’ve had amazing partners in high schools across the country and in advocates like Becky Pringle and Randi Weingarten.  (Applause.)

Together, we’re making sure that high school graduation isn’t a s- — y- — a sudden halt in a student’s education but rather like the seamless step forward, whether that’s on a college campus, a registered apprenticeship, or another career opportunity.  And we’ve partnered with the leaders of unions and businesses and school districts, colleges, and universities and — to match what — local employers and the workers that they need. 

And that’s what we’ve ab- — been able to do with our Investing in America Workforce Hubs.  And it’s a model that communities across the country can replicate.

Community colleges are no longer America’s best-kept secret.  Thanks to the progress of Joe’s administration and what they’ve created, we’re on our way to making them America’s best-kept promise.  Thank you.  (Applause.) 

But there’s more ground to cover, and it will take all of us to get there.  If we work together, we can build a future where more high school students will graduate with credits and skills that they can apply to their future careers, where community college is free for every student in every state of America, and where all students have a clear pathway to jobs that pay well right in the communities where they grew up.

This semester is coming to a close.  My students are starting to write their last assignments, and they’re signing up for new classes, or some are going to graduate. 

Joe and I are also preparing for what’s coming next.  (Laughter.) 

(The president makes the sign of the cross.)  (Laughter and applause.) 

It has been the honor of our lives to serve in the White House and to work alongside, really, all of you in this room.  So, as you keep pushing forward to make our country shine with opportunity, know that you will always have a partner in us. 

And now, I’d like to introduce a longtime champion of our nation’s students.  Not only has Joe always supported my career as an educator, but as president, he wakes up every day with a mission to lift up all Americans through the endless possibility of education. 

Please welcome your president, my husband and hero, Joe Biden.  (Applause.) 

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you.  (Applause.)  Thank you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.  Thank all of you.  (Applause.)  Please. 

I’m Joe Biden.  I’m Jill Biden’s husband.  (Laughter.)  And you can see she doesn’t have any strong notions or ideas.  (Laughter.)

You know, teaching is not what Jill does; it’s who she is — and I mean that — like many of you teachers.  It’s — it’s just built in her DNA.  She was surprised when we got elected vice president, and she said she wanted to keep teaching.  I said, “Of course.”  She looked at me like, “Really?  You’re going to do that?”  And we did it. 

But the point is that this is a passion.  It’s a passion for Jill.  And the way I look at it is it’s a simple proposition: How can we be the greatest nation in the world and not have the best education system in the world?  (Applause.)  No, I mean it.  Think about it.  It’s pretty straightforward.

So, I’m honored to host this White House Classroom of [to] Career Summit.  

Look, 15 years ago, when Jill hosted the first one during our vice presidency, to state the obvious, as I said, what Jill is — for Jill, being an educator is just what she is.  Period.  And I believe the work she’s done to connect students and good-paying jobs will prove one of the most important efforts of our presidency, and I mean it.

Look, that’s why we’re all here today.  And I want to thank Congressman Norcross of New Jersey.  I keep reminding — my Jersey guys, we do really well in Jersey.  Jill is a Jersey girl, born and raised.  (Laughter.)  And I tell him, though, there was actually a case a long time ago.  Delaware is the second smallest state in the nation, and we own the Delaware River up to the high-water mark in New Jersey.  (Laughter.)  It was a Supreme Court decision, for real.  And so, I’m — I just want you to know.  That’s why we’re so close.  (Laughter.)  You just step off of — (laughs) — anyway.  (Laughter.)  You’re a good man, pal.  You really are.

And to members of my Cabinet who are here, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you — and leaders of business, education, unions, philanthropy, nonprofits, and more, you know, for being here and for your leadership.  And I mean it sincerely.

You know, when we came into office, the pandemic was raging and the economy was reeling.  And from day one, I was determined not only to vaccinate the nation, to deliver immediate economic relief for the folks who needed it the most, but I also determined to transform the way our economy works for everyone, to write a new economic playbook — and I mean it sincerely — a new economic playbook from — build the economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not from the top down. 

My dad used to have an expression.  He’d say, “You know, Joey, when you talk about trickle-down economics, not a whole hell of a lot trickles down on our kitchen table.”

Well, when we do that, the poor have a ladder up and the middle class do well, and the wealthy still will be able to do very well.  And we all do well.

It’s a playbook based on a value set that my dad taught me.  He used to say — and I mean this sincerely — “Joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck.  It’s about your dignity.  It’s about your place in the community.  It’s about being able to look your kid in the eye and say, ‘Honey, it’s going to be okay,’ and mean it — and mean it.”  It matters. 

Well, not everyone has felt the progress, because it takes time.  We’ve emerged from a crisis.  We have the strongest economy in the world.  More to — much more to do.  Working families and the middle class are — are the center of a strong, equitable, and sustainable recovery. 

And the big reason why is that I call the Investing in American agenda.  You know, it’s a page from our economic playbook that invests in all of America and all Americans, creating pathways for millions of good-paying jobs being created in our economy. 

You know, the key pieces of the Investing in America include historic laws that I’ve signed, historic investments in modernizing our roads and bridges, our ports, airports, public transit. 

We’re — we’re replacing poisonous lead pipes.  We’re delivering clean water to every American.  It’s taking time — it’s going to, but it’s t- — beginning.  It’s real.  It’s there. 

We’re delivering affordable, high-speed Internet and so much more. 

Roosevelt talked about the need to electrify America during that (inaudible).  Well, how can — how can you have access to being able to participate in everything — in fact, you don’t have access to affordable Internet?  You don’t have access to — anyway.  Don’t get me going.  (Laughter.) 

But — but, look, we’re also making sure that the supply chain — I don’t think Americans heard much about supply chains before we came to office — (applause) — but the supply chain st- — starts in America.  We can no longer — for the longest time — for the longest time, corporate America decided to export the jobs because of cheaper labor and import the product.  Well, not us.  We’ve changed that dynamic. 

For example, semiconductors — those little computer chips, smaller than the tip of my little finger, you know, they power everything from our smartphones to automobiles to weapon systems.  America invented those chips.  We, in the United States, invented them.  We modernized them.  We did all the work on it, but we stopped making them.  We used to have over 40 percent of the market, and we got down to virtually none of it. 

But not anymore.  Today, we’re making once-in-a-generation investments in American science and innovation that are building chip factories all across America, and they’re going to be creating tens of thousands of good-paying jobs — and that’s not hyperbole.  But it takes time to build them. 

The one thing we — you know, I was all excited about how much we’ve invested and how much is g- — coming, but it’s taken time.  You have to build those so-called fabs.  These, quote, “fabs” — these factories to build these things are as long — as big as football fields.  And guess what?  They pay about an average of $105,000 a year, and you don’t need a college degree to get there.  And that doesn’t even count the tens of billions of dollars being spent to build these facilities and attract other businesses. 

And I signed the most significant climate law ever in American history but — in the history of the world.  (Applause.)

The congressman will tell you, we were told we couldn’t get it done, but we got it done.  We got it done. 

And, you know, it’s leading us into a clean energy future with even more good-paying clean energy jobs and American workers.

As a result of these laws and other things we’ve done — I won’t take all your time, but the key actions — the end result is: We’ve created, in the four years we’ve been — almost four years we’ve been here, we’ve created 16 million new jobs — brand-new jobs — since I took office — (applause) — and in — the most in any single U.S. presidential term.

Inflation is at 2.6 percent — close to the pre-pandemic rate. 

Unemployment is down to 4.1 percent — longest stretch for a long, long time, that low.

Despite the critics saying we had to lower ambitions to get the economy going, we’ve attracted off the sidelines from private enterprise over $1 trillion — $1 trillion in private investment in clean energy and manufacturing that are creating good-paying jobs and building factories here in America, where they belong.

Now, all this historic investment is happening in every part of the country.  You know, you may re- — recall saying, “I’m a president for all Americans no matter who they voted for.”  Well, keeping that commitment, the majority of the investments are actually in red states, not blue states, because they got hurt the most by the policies early on — all those factories shutting down. 

How many times did you come from places where you’d have, “Mom and my grandpop and grandmom worked in that factory, and my mom and dad worked there, my — but I got to move, Mom, because there’s no job.  The factory is gone”?  They got hurt very badly.  It takes away the soul of the — of community.

And we’re making sure these Americans have access to good-paying jobs that are being created. 

“Buy America” has been the law of the land since the ‘30s, which hardly anybody knew, hardly anybody paid attention to. 

When Franklin Roosevelt was trying to make it fair for i- — for unions to be able to organize so the business couldn’t just crush them because they started, there was a provision in the law in the early ‘30s that said when a president is authorized by Congress to spend money on a project, he has to do it — two things: He has to use that money to hire American workers, and he has to use American products.  Well, this administration — past administrations failed to do that.  Like I said, so much was exported overseas.  Well, not — not on my watch. 

My administration buys American.  We’re making sure the federal projects we’re building — roads, bridges, highways, and more — are getting made with American products, built by American workers, and creating good-paying American jobs — jobs that don’t require a four-year college degree, jobs you can raise a family on.  In fact, my administration is requiring many of these kinds of projects to pay what — a union wage called a Davis-Bacon prevailing wage. 

We’re expanding registered apprenticeships, resulting in hiring more than 1 million apprentices since we’ve come into office.  Remember, business came along and said, “We’ll do the apprenticeships.”  (Laughs.)  Yeah, right.  (Laughter.)  Well, guess what?  They’re not.

A lot of folks don’t realize that an apprenticeship is like earning a college degree.  You know, you spend up to four, five years training — wh- — you get paid while you’re doing it — to learn a trade to lead you to a good-paying job, like going to school before you can be registered in that particular expertise.  They’re among the best workers in the world. 

Today, I’m proud to announce that for the first time ever, the number of women in apprenticeships has reached 100,000 — (applause) — 100,000 — three times the number from a decade ago. 

When I took office, not a single state had a registered apprenticeship program for teachers.  Today, 46 states, plus Puerto Rico and D.C., have launched registered apprenticeship programs for teachers.  (Applause.)

Some will say I did that because I feared for my life, but — (laughter) — but not true.  I wanted to do it anyway.  (Laughter.)

I’m also proud to announce that we’ve committed more than $80 billion — $80 billion — toward strengthening and expanding our workforce. 

As Jill just described, that includes supporting free community college programs so students and workers can train for good jobs without the burden of student debt. 

It also described what we launched — the Workforce Hubs, where we collaborate with local leaders, community colleges, unions, local businesses to train and connect Americans to good-paying jobs.  And it’s good for students and workers.  It grows the economy for everyone. 

I know I’m listed as the most pro-union president in American history.  I’m very proud of that.  But guess what?  (Applause.)  Guess what, folks?  Business is now acknowledging tha- — it helps them too.

I had Treasury Department do a study: What’s the effect of focusing on unions?  Everybody — everybody’s standard of living is raised — everybody’s. 

We’ve also — really proud to have launched the American Climate Corps, you know, patterned after the Peace Corps and the AmericaCorps [AmeriCorps], to put tens of thousands of young people on a path to good-paying clean energy apprenticeships and jobs.  That’s the future.  

And with the support of the private sector, we’re also bringing business into the high schools so younger students can learn about and train for good-paying jobs, including those that that don’t require a four-year degree, as Jill pointed out. 

There’s so much more that you’ll learn about at today’s summit.  And you — many of you will bring more information as well.  But, look, it really matters. 

Let me close with this.  You heard Jill speak about incredible students.  Well, joining us today is another American worker who embodies the incredible character that we see all over the country: Maurice Bogard, Jr. — Maurice, I’m going to ask you to come up here in a second — a father of two young children, one of whom I work for.  (Laughter.) 

He — he’s going to actually come up?  (Applause.)

(Mr. Bogard and two children join the president on stage.)  (Applause.)

Now, look, Maurice is from Cleveland, Ohio.  From the day his children were born, he had a survival mindset to do whatever he could to improve the positive cir- — circumstances for his family: 12-to-16-hour days at multiple jobs, even working out of town for months at a time just to get by, just — it meant fewer hours with his children, as well, and his family. 

Last year, his sister, who is also with him today — sis, stand up — (applause) — every man like me needs a strong sister — (laughter) — I have one — sent him to a link to a — about a pre-apprentice program where you can learn a trade, funded by my American Re- — by the American Rescue Plan that I signed into law as soon as I came to office.  Well, Maurice signed up.  Within hours, he had an appointment.  He soon started a four-week training program to connect him with his local IBEW, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. 

Today, he’s on his way to becoming a journeyman electrician, working — (applause) — working at the stadium of his hometown baseball team, the Cleveland Guardians.  (Laughter).

MR. BOGARD:  Yes, sir.

THE PRESIDENT:  A good-paying job with good hours, good benefits, and a lifelong career and a sense of dignity and pride to be the father he always wanted to be.

MR. BOGARD:  Yes, sir.

THE PRESIDENT:  And it’s not just him.  Millions of workers and families have more opportunity today than they did four years ago in an economy — economy that’s growing from the middle out and bottom up. 

(Addressing Mr. Bogard.)  You — he can — put him down.  He can do whatever he wants.  (Laughter.)

(Addressing child.)  All you got to do — look, you can do anything you want, pal.  (Laughter.)  Okay?  You want to make a speech later, you can.  All right?  (Laughter.)  All right. 

An economy where everyone has a fair shot, we leave nobody behind, and invest in America and all Americans — that’s what we’ve done together by reminding ourselves who we are. 

For Lord’s sake, we’re the United States of America.  There is nothing — I mean this from the bottom of my heart — there’s nothing beyond our capacity when we do it together.  And there’s no b- — group I’d rather be doing it with than all of you.

So, God bless you all.  And may God protect our troops.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.  (Applause.)

10:33 A.M. EST

The post Remarks by President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden at the Classroom to Career Summit appeared first on The White House.

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

12:49 P.M. EST

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Good afternoon, everyone.

Q Good afternoon.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Oh, okay. (Laughter.) I’m excited to see you all too.

Okay. So, today, President Biden met with President-elect Trump for approximately two hours in the Oval Office. White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and incoming Chief of Staff Susie Wiles joined the meeting.

It was substantive meeting and exchange of views.

They discussed important national security and domestic policy issues facing the nation and the world.

President Biden also raised important items on Congress’s to-do list for the lame-duck session, including funding the government and providing the disaster supplemental funding the president requested.

Finally, the president rei- — reiterated what he said to the president-elect the day after the election and to the American people in the Rose Garden just last week: We will have an orderly transition and a peaceful transition of power.

With that, as you can see, I have the national security advisor with me, Jake Sullivan, who is going to preview APEC in Peru and also G20 in Brazil. The president is going to be leaving tomorrow, as you all know.

And, Jake, the floor is yours.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thanks, Karine. And hi, everybody. I’m going to make some brief comments about the president’s trip that he leaves on tomorrow, answer a few questions, because I know the issue you are most interested in is hearing from Karine about the meeting, so I will not dally too long up here. But I think it is important to lay out the president’s trip here over the next several days.

Tomorrow, he travels to South America. His first stop will be Peru for the APEC Summit — the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit — and then he’ll go on to Brazil for the first-ever presidential trip to the Amazon and then to the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

At APEC, the president will reinforce America’s leading role in the Indo-Pacific. And over the last four years, he has markedly enhanced our strategic position in this vital region, from our treaty alliances to AUKUS to the Quad to the historic trilateral with Japan and Korea.

And with respect to that trilateral, he will meet with President Yoon of South Korea and Prime Minister Ishiba of Japan to celebrate the historic cooperation between our three nations and discuss the importance of institutionalizing the progress we’ve made so that it carries forward through the transition.

While in Lima, President Biden will also meet with President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China. This will be the third in-person meeting between the two leaders since President Biden came into office and their final meeting as presidents. They previously met, as you know, in Bali in 2022 at the G20 Summit and at Woodside, California, near San Francisco in 2023 on the margins of APEC Summit, which was exactly one year and one day ago.

And throughout his time in office, President Biden and his team have worked to effectively and responsibly manage the competition between the United States and the PRC.

The president’s approach on the PRC has prioritized investments in sources of American strength at home, including growing the middle class and ensuring that America maintains its industrial capacity and its innovation edge in fields such as semiconductors and artificial intelligence.

He has strengthened our alliances around the world and especially in the Indo-Pacific, he has boosted American deterrence, and he’s ensured that America remains the partner of choice for countries both in the region and across the world.

The president has also taken commonsense measures to advance our national — national security and protect our most sensitive technologies to prevent them from being exploited or used against us by the PRC, including through significant new export control measures.

At the same time, the president has demonstrated that the U.S. and the PRC can manage our differences and prevent competition from veering into conflict or confrontation, and he has done that by ensuring the maintenance of open lines of communication at the leader level, at the military-to-military level, and at every level of our respective governments. And we’ve also worked to advance cooperation where our interests align, including on counternarcotics and climate change, which is what the people of our two countries expect and what the world expects.

And this meeting between President Biden and President Xi will be an opportunity to ensure a smooth transition and also to continue to keep those channels of communication open, including those especially critical military-to-military channels of communication.

Of course, in Lima, President Biden will also meet President Boluarte of Peru to mark the strength and durability of our bilateral relationship with Peru.

After that, the president will travel to Brazil, and he’ll start with a historic stop in the Amazon to underscore his personal commitment and America’s continuing commitment at all levels of government and across our private sector and civil society to combat climate change at home and abroad. And this has been, obviously, one of the defining causes of President Biden’s presidency.

While in Manaus, in the Amazon, President Biden will visit the rainforest, engage with local leaders who are working to preserve and protect this critical ecosystem. And as I noted, this will be the first-ever visit of a sitting U.S. president to the Amazon.

President Biden will then travel to Rio de Janeiro to par- — participate in his fourth and final G20 Leaders’ Summit.

High on the agenda there will be issues associated with debt sustainability for low- and middle-income countries; mobilizing finance for infrastructure — physical, digital, energy infrastructure around the world; and also dealing, obviously, with the major geopolitical issues of the day, from Ukraine to the Middle East.

As you all know, the G20 is a unique forum. It includes both our closest allies and partners as well as our adversaries, and pulling this group together around shared challenges is never easy, but we do expect to make some progress, particularly around debt and finance, during our time in Rio.

The president, of course, will also meet with President Lula of Brazil. The two leaders have really built a strong, productive relationship over the last four years, and they’re looking forward to have their final meeting together as presidents as well.

So, we’ve got a busy week ahead of us.

And with that, as I said, I’ll take a few questions and then turn it back over to Karine.

Yeah.

Q Thanks again for doing this, Jake. In the run-up to the election, President Biden warned that allies were worried about America’s commitment to the world. What’s his message to those allies after this election?

MR. SULLIVAN: Well, he is going to have the same message that he’s had for four years as president, which is that he believes that America’s allies are vital to America’s national security. They make us stronger. They multiply our capability. They take a burden off of our shoulders. They contribute to our common causes, including the cause of standing up for freedom and territorial integrity in Ukraine.

And as I noted in my opening comments, when he goes to this Asia-Pacific summit in Peru, he’ll go with our alliances in the Indo-Pacific at a literal all-time high — Japan, Korea, Australia, the Philippines — a really remarkable record over four years. And that’s what he’s going to hand off to President Trump.

And he is going to be making the case to our allies and, frankly, to our adversaries that America is standing with its alliances, investing in its alliances. And then asking its allies to step up and do their part, which they have done these past four years, is central to American strength and capacity in the world.

That will be his message. It’s a message of principle. It’s a message of practicality. And it’s been one of the causes of President Biden’s life.

Yeah.

Q Karine said national security obviously came up in the meeting today. You’ve suggested that the president would make the case to the president-elect not to walk away from Ukraine. Was that message conveyed? How was — it was — how was it received?

MR. SULLIVAN: Well, I’ll let Karine speak to what happened in the meeting. I will only note that President Biden reinforced his view that the United States standing with Ukraine on an ongoing basis is in our national security interest. And it’s in our national security interest because a strong Europe, a stable Europe, standing up to aggressors and dictators and pushing back against their aggression is vital to ensuring that we don’t end up getting dragged directly into a war, which has happened, obviously, twice in the 20th century on the European continent.

So, the president has made this case. He’ll continue to make this case both privately and publicly. And he will make the case that our investment in Ukraine, the — the funds that the Congress has appropriated, these aren’t just dollars that we’re picking up and shipping over to another country. They’re dollars we’re investing here in the United States in American jobs, producing American weapons that we send to Ukraine and American weapons that we are building to expand our own industrial base and our own military capacity to deter other adversaries all around the world.

So, he laid this out. He will continue to make this case as we go forward. And as we go through this transition, it will be our responsibility as the national security team to lay out for the incoming team both what we see and a — you know, in terms of the current situation — and how we believe that the United States of America, through this transition and beyond, can put Ukraine in the strongest possible position on the battlefield so that it’s in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table for an ultimate deal.

Yeah.

Q The families of the American hostages who are held in Gaza are going to meet with President Biden today. We’ve heard from the families that they would like to see the Biden administration and the incoming Trump administration work together to try to secure the release of these hostages.

Do you see any room for cooperation or coordination between your team, the president’s team, and Trump’s team to try to get a deal before Biden leaves office?

MR. SULLIVAN: I met with the hostages myself yesterday, and, as you noted, President Biden will meet with the — the families of the hostages yesterday, and President Biden will meet with them very shortly. And they asked me this question, and I was very simple and emphatic with them: Yes, of course, we’re prepared to work with the incoming team in common cause on a bipartisan basis to do everything in our collective American power to secure the release of the hostages, both living and deceased.

So, we are open to have that engagement, have that collaboration, and we will continue to work in every remaining day that President Biden has in office, that we have in these jobs to try to bring those — those hostages home to their loved ones.

Yeah.

Q Just to clarify real quick, though. There’s been no discussion yet with the Trump team about doing that?

MR. SULLIVAN: Well, I will say that this is a topic — obviously, the American hostages being held in Gaza — that President Biden and President Trump covered today, but we have not had the opportunity to engage with the incoming team yet.

I — I’m only expressing, standing here today, as I did to the hostage families yesterday, we are very much willing to do so. And we’ve sent a signal to the incoming team that we’re prepared to work with them on this issue, as with every other issue, because President Biden’s cardinal direction to us is ensure a smooth and orderly transition.

Q O- — on that, are you finding the Israelis as responsive to the Biden administration inquiries or requests, given that we know the prime minister is in pretty frequent touch with the president-elect?

MR. SULLIVAN: I had the opportunity to sit down yesterday with the Israeli minister of strategic affairs, Ron Dermer. We had a detailed discussion about every element of the current situation in the Middle East, and it was a constructive discussion. We are still actively working in support of our common efforts to push back against our common adversaries, to try to deal with the situation in Gaza, in Lebanon, and directly with respect to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

And just to give you an example, we are working on an ongoing, daily basis to try to increase the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza, giving the suffering of the innocent civilians there who are trapped amidst the crossfire between the IDF and — and the terrorist group Hamas. We have made some progress in that regard. I — we extracted further commitments from the Israeli side over the course of the past couple of days. We want to see those commitments followed through on.

So, we believe that we can continue to work across the board on all of the relevant issues, whether it’s humanitarian assistance or it’s ensuring the defense of Israel against Iranian attacks or it’s working on ceasefire efforts and — and a hostage deal in Gaza or it’s ultimately bringing a diplomatic resolution to Lebanon, which we’re actively working on. We’ll continue to do that every day that we have remaining in office.

Yeah.

Q Jake, I know you can’t speak to what happened in this — in the meeting earlier. We’ll ask Karine about that. But eight years ago, then-President Obama explicitly warned incoming-President Donald Trump about the urgent threat posed by North Korea. He said it was the most urgent national security threat the U.S. was facing at the time.

What would you communicate to your national security advisor peer, who is going to be following you in this job? What is the most urgent national security threat facing the United States today, as Donald Trump prepares to take office?

MR. SULLIVAN: Well, I would say two things in answer to that question. The first is that if you look out at a strategic level, the competition with the People’s Republic of China is going to be defining for what the world looks like over the course of the next 10, 20, and 30 years, and so that has got to be a paramount priority for the incoming administration.

And the person who’s been named as my successor, the person who’s been floated as the secretary of State, these are people who have very much focused on that challenge, and we’ll look forward to talking to them about how we’ve approached it and obviously pass on the current state of play.

Then there’s the most immediate issue, which is Iran and its proxy groups continue to take actions that directly threaten Americans and American interests in the Middle East, and that has to be dealt with on an urgent basis.

Now, that’s at the macro level and the micro level. In between those two, you have an ongoing war of aggression by Russia against Ukraine representing a larger threat to European security and, therefore, global security. And you’ve got North Korea coming behind to provide troops in that war.

So, these are all issues for which we have clear approaches, working in coordination with allies and partners, and we are going to try to ensure that we pass off each of these areas to the next team in a way that is as smooth as possible.

Q Last time Donald —

MR. SULLIVAN: Yeah.

Q Last time he was going to — just to follow up quickly. Last time, in that same meeting, Obama told Trump that he had real concerns about the hiring of a national security advisor, Mike Flynn. Donald Trump ultimately hired Mike Flynn. Do you have any concerns about the names that you have heard mentioned so far and announced so far by Donald Trump to serve in his administration in a national security role?

MR. SULLIVAN: I know some of them. I’ve engaged with some of them. And — and people like, for example, Congressman Waltz, who’s been named to be my replacement, he’s somebody that I have engaged with in the past. I respect his service to this country in uniform. He’s put his life on the line. I respect his service in Congress.

He and I obviously don’t see eye to eye on every issue, but I am very much looking forward to engaging him over these next 60 days, as I said, so that we can have this smooth handoff.

There are other people that he’s named who I just don’t know, I haven’t met, and therefore can’t comment on.

Q Thank you.

MR. SULLIVAN: Yeah.

Q So, you — you talk about wanting to engage, wanting to smooth this transition. Why hasn’t it happened yet? Is there — is the signing of the MOUs an actual issue that is preventing you from coordinating with the Trump — incoming Trump team?

MR. SULLIVAN: So, I’ll defer to Karine to kind of go into the nitty-gritty. What I’ll say at a broad level, though, is the MOU creates the opening for the landing teams to arrive at the agencies, to include the NSC.

But that doesn’t mean that we can’t reach out and get — you know, and express our willingness to engage with our counterparts — our incoming counterparts. We’ve done that. And so, I expect that in a matter of days here, we should be able to have some engagement.

Of course, that depends on whether the incoming team wants to engage, and — and that will be up to them.

But for our part, we are more than willing to do what is our responsibility as directed by the president and, frankly, as dictated by the Constitution, which is to ensure the peaceful transition of power.

Yeah.

Q I just have a China-related question as well. You know, the — the Biden administration largely left in place the Trump-era tariffs on China. The policy hasn’t been — towards China, it hasn’t been wildly divergent. Do you see the potential for bipartisan agreement on the relationship with China in the next administration or going forward?

MR. SULLIVAN: I think for us to succeed in the long-term competition with the PRC, it will require a bipartisan foundation. The best traditions of American foreign policy have always had a bipartisan element. And many aspects of the policy that we have pursued in this administration, with respect to the PRC and with respect to the Indo-Pacific, have been bipartisan.

By the way, the same thing is true with respect to Ukraine, where there has been strong bipartisan support and votes in both the House and the Senate for the resources and the strategy for Ukraine.

So, from our perspective, we would like to see that continue. Now, obviously, we don’t know what the incoming team is going to do, how divergent they will be. Those will be decisions they take. Not for me to comment on.

All I can say is that when it comes to investing in our alliances, the sources of strength at home, the protections of our advanced technologies, these are things we’re going to advocate continue because we think that they are not political issues. They’re American issues that can serve all of the people of this country.

Yeah.

Q Thanks, Jake. Will the president raise this alleged hack by a Chinese hacking group when he meets with President Xi, and are you planning any kind of consequences for that hack?

MR. SULLIVAN: It is a significant issue. I expect that the FBI and CISA will have an update in terms of their investigation, which is ongoing into the hack, soon. We here at the White House have stood up at the — at the NSC what’s called the UCG, a Unified Coordinating Group, in order to coordinate the entire U.S. government to be able to deal with this hack, which is a hack of private telecommunications providers, but private telecommunications providers that provide services to U.S. government personnel, among others. So, you will hear from the FBI and CISA on that.

I do expect this will come up in the meeting in Peru.

And I’m not going to speak to consequences from this podium. I will only say that we have made clear over time that we will respond when we see actions taken, in terms of cyberattacks, cyber espionage, cyber intrusions. That has been a feature of our policy to date. It will remain a feature of our policy going forward.

I’ll take just a couple more and then let Karine take over.

Go ahead.

Q Thanks, Jake. Can you give us a sense of what else President Biden said to President Trump about Russia in their meeting?

And also, with regard to China, will he pass on any tips or color from his meeting with President Trump to President Xi when they meet? And what will his message be to — to President Xi?

MR. SULLIVAN: I’ve already mildly violated the not reading out the meeting proviso. (Laughter.) So, I will pass that off to —

Q Keep going.

Q Not a problem with that here.

MR. SULLIVAN: — I will pass that off to Karine. Mild — mild violations.

But with respect to his meeting with President Xi, I don’t expect him to pass messages. Obviously, President Trump, when he comes into office, will have his opportunity to engage directly with President Xi.

But I will observe that transitions are uniquely consequential moments in geopolitics. They’re a time when competitors and adversaries can see possibly opportunity, because you have this — this change in government here.

And so, part of what President Biden will communicate is that we need to maintain stability, clarity, predictability through this transition between the United States and China.

And he will also really reinforce the point that in order for us to manage this competition responsibly going forward, we have to sustain, over the long term, the channels of communication at every level, particularly the military-to-military level.

And then, of course, he will look to try to consolidate progress on areas where we can work together, for example, on counternarcotics and fentanyl coordination, and on trying to manage the safety risks associated with artificial intelligence.

So, it’s an important meeting. It will not be just a valedictory. Although there will be an element of reflecting over the course of their long relationship, there is actual work to do in this critical moment between the U.S. and China to ensure that we don’t run into any problems in the next two months in this transition of power.

Last question.

Q Can you sort of explain the strategy for the remaining drawdown authority for Ukraine, and also, if the administration is going to ask for any additional drawdown authority in like an end-of-the-year CR or spending plan?

MR. SULLIVAN: So, the president has made clear and he has directed his team to ensure that every dollar that the Congress gave to him, authorized him to spend, he will spend on behalf of Ukraine before he leaves office.

Now, again, these are not dollars he is putting on an airplane and flying across the ocean. These are dollars he is investing in the American defense industrial base. As we provide weapons to Ukraine, we make new weapons to give to the U.S. military.

All of those dollars will be spent, will be obligated by the time he leaves office on January 20th.

Therefore, it only stands to reason that in the next two months, the administration will signal to Congress that we would like to see additional funds for Ukraine for 2025 so that they can be in the best possible position, the strongest possible position to negotiate, to ensure they achieve their objectives, that they win at the negotiating table.

Now, what form will that take — CR, et cetera — I’m going to not get myself in trouble by turning into the OMB director up here. I will just say that the administration very much sees the necessity and the logic of seeking additional resources for 2025 since we are doing what Congress asked us to do, which is dispersing the funds they gave us for 2024.

And with that, I’ll turn it over to Karine.

(Cross-talk.)

Q Jake, on the Amazon trip —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Thank you, Jake.

Q Congrats on becoming a congressional spouse. (Laughter.)

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I just have one more thing, and then I’ll go into your questions.

So, today, the president and the first lady welcomed nearly 200 education and workforce leaders to the White House for the Biden-Harris administration’s Classroom [to] Career Summit.

The administration’s Investing in America agenda is creating millions of good-paying jobs, many of which do not require a four-year college degree. And its investments will continue to drive job creation for years to come.

The summit highlighted the record progress to expand career pathways to these good-paying jobs in infrastructure, clean energy, ad- — advanced manufacturing, and so much more.

With that, Josh, it’s good to see you, as always.

Q Goo- — good to see you, Karine. Regarding the meeting.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah. (Laughter.)

Q President Biden has given a lot of statements about his concern for the U.S. democracy. Did he share any of those concerns with President-elect Trump in their meeting about what he feels should be done or needs to be done?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, I’m not going to go into granular detail of what was discussed in — in the meeting.

What I can say: that it was indeed very cordial, very gracious, and substantive. And I mentioned at the top, national security was discussed. Domestic polishy — policy issues were discussed.

I had an opportunity to speak with the president in the Oval Office right before coming out to do this press briefing, because I wanted to make sure that I got what the president wanted to share with all of you, so certainly that everything that I’m saying is — is sanctioned, if you will, by the president.

He wanted you all to know that the president-elect, again, was gracious, came with a detailed set of questions. It was, again, substantive.

But I do want to take a little bit of a step back here, because it’s really important to note, and you hear — you’re going to hear me continuing to say this over and over again: the importance of having a smooth transition, an importance of having an orderly transition.

The president respects the will of the — the American people and wants to make sure that occurs. That is what he believes the American people deserve.

And so, that is as far as I can go. That is what I am sharing with you from the president directly.

And — and, look, we’re going to make sure, as Jake Sullivan was saying, that his team has what they need. Right? They want to make sure that it is indeed an efficient, effective transition so that we can — so that we hand over the people’s business so that they can continue the people’s business.

Q Can you say how President Biden answered some of those detailed questions?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I will say that the president certainly looked forward to — looked forward to the meeting, appreciated the conversation, and answered any questions that the president-elect had; offered up his — his thoughts. But I’m not going to go any further than that.

Go ahead, Mary.

Q You said “gracious,” “cordial,” “substantive.”

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

Q The president obviously hit on a wide range of issues, but did he get a sense that the issues that he was impressing upon, that any advice he was giving was being well received?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I think so. I think that’s why the president was saying — was wanting me to let you all know that there was a — you know, a very good back-and-forth, and it was substantive, as I mentioned before.

And I want to be mindful. It was a private conversation, so I don’t want to go into specifics or details.

But, look, they met for more than two hours. They met for a very long time — or nearly two hours, pardon me. And I think by — the length of the meeting tells you that they had an in-depth conversation on an array of issues.

And so, look, the president reached out to the president-elect, wanting to make sure that he gave an opportunity to the president-elect, afforded him that opportunity to — to have a meeting with him to talk about the different issues that matter to the American people.

But nearly two hours says — I think says a lot about how the meeting went.

Q Any plans to keep a line of communication open?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: The president is always going to, obviously, keep that line of communication open to the president-elect. We’ve got to remember, this is not about the two presidents. This is not about President Biden or President-elect Trump. This is about the American people and what’s right for the American people. And, if anything, the president has led by example — right? — over the last week or — week — week now on making sure that we have this cordial transition of power.

Q Can I ask one on just one other topic?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

Q President-elect Trump’s nominee for Defense secretary has questioned whether or not women should serve in combat roles in the military. Wondering what the administration makes of that. Is there any concern about women’s ability to serve in certain roles going forward?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I think we’ve made ourselves really clear. I’m not going to speak to this pick. That’s not — the president is g- — the — the president-elect is going to lay out his — certainly, his — his personnel and who he wants to fill these Cabinet position, who he wants to be in the White House with him. And we will give them the space to do that.

But I think we’ve been very, very clear about how we see the importance of — of gender equality, the importance of women in the workforce. I think we have been an administration that has led on that issue, and certainly we do not agree with those views. But that is for the pr- — obviously, the president-elect to — to speak to his picks, and I’m going to let them do that.

Go ahead, Jeff.

Q You said the president-elect came with a detailed list of questions.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: (Laughs.)

Q That’s — that’s surprising to me. What — what was on his list?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I’m not going to go into details of what was on the list. I wanted — I shared that and the president wanted you all to know that because we want to be very clear, it was a- — actually a substantive meeting — nearly two hours.

There was a lot discussed. There was a lot of back-and-forth. And I’m not going to go into specifics. I think if the president-elect wants to share his set of questions to President Biden, he certainly can and — and will, if he chooses.

But wanted to give you as much information as I could without — without, you know, going into too much specifics on a private conversation.

Q Was the list typed out on a piece of paper?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: (Laughs.) I don’t have — I appreciate the — the effort there, Jeff. I don’t have anything beyond that.

Q Did the issue of the fact that President Trump did not acknowledge Bi- — President Biden as the winner in the 2020 election come up today?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: What we want to do is move forward. We do. W-

Q Really?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: No, seriously. What we want to do is move forward. We respect the will of the people. There was an election, as you know, last week, and the American people spoke. And so, the president is going to make sure that he puts the American people first. He’s going to make sure that we move forward in this process and this transition process in a way that is respectful to the American people and to sh- — to lead by example.

And so, that’s our focus. That’s what we want to do. I think the president has shown that in the past week of — of that leadership. And so, that’s what you’re going to hear. That’s what we’re going to continue to do in the 68 days that we have left in this administration.

Q I understand that. I guess —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yep.

Q — that just seems like a piece of unfinished business between them. Did it come up at all?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Look, that is something certainly that I would leave for the president-elect to speak to. What I can speak to is this president wanting to focus on the American people, wanting to focus on issues that matter — domestic policy issues, national security issues that are critical and important in how we move forward as a country. That’s what the president wanted to focus on.

Again, it was gracious. It was substantive. And I think that’s what’s important. And what we are showing the American people is how you do this — how do you have a peaceful transition of power, how it looks leading by example. And that is quintessential Joe Biden, I believe.

Go ahead.

Q Yeah. Thanks, Karine. I’m just trying to understand. I mean, besides demonstrating —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

Q — a peaceful transfer of power, what was the big message that President Biden was trying to convey to incoming-President Trump?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I think just that, and the American people, you know. You h- — all had an — those who were able to be in the room got to see the — the two presidents sitting side by side, shaking hands. You heard what the president-elect talked about politics — politics being tough and understanding what that looks like. We get that as well. You know?

And I’ll go back to what we said last week. Did the elections turn out the way we wanted? Absolutely not. Are we disappointed? Yes, we’re disappointed.

But, again, there was an election. The American people decided. And what the president wants to focus on is what it looks like — what it looks like to — to move forward, to put the country first, put — to put the American people first and move forward in a — in a respectful way. And I think that was also the message that you saw from this president today.

Q A- — and then, does the White House have any reaction to this Department of Government Efficiency that Trump announced yesterday? He’s brought on Elon Musk and Vivek R- — Ramaswamy to lead. Says the group is — is ta- — is being tasked to find ways to cut government spending waste, regulations. Does the White House have any concerns about this effort, or do you think maybe it’s a good idea to look at these things?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I — no comment.

Q Okay.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I’m not going to comment.

Go ahead.

Q You’ve talked about ensuring that the next administration has all the resources they need for this transition, but one thing that needs to happen in order for the Trump transition to have access to agencies and such are these signings of the memorandums —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

Q — of understanding with both the GSA and the White House, including an ethics plan. Did that come up in any way in the conversation today, even if it was just between Jeff Zients and Susie Wiles?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: And I was just going to say that. As you know, Jeff Zients, the chief of staff, had an opportunity to speak with the incoming chief of staff. I have not spoken to Jeff on if that issue came up, but Jeff has been leading this effort of making sure that we have that smooth transition of power. We are ready. We are ready to go. We — and I’ve also mentioned that the cochairs of the — of the Trump transition have said that they are — they are — in public, have said that they are going to sign the MOUs. So, I’m going to have to leave it to them.

We are ready. And Jake, I think, put it really well when he said it doesn’t mean that we can’t still have conversations. It doesn’t mean we can’t engage with our counterparts or those who are — have been picked by the president-elect to come into this administration. Certainly, we are open to that and want that to happen.

But I would have to, you know, refer you to the Trump transition, who have — they have said they would sign those MO- — MOUs.

Q And back in 2000, then-Vice President Al Gore actually hosted George W. Bush a few days after he had conceded the election. When Bush came to meet with Clinton, he then went on to meet with Gore. Did Vice President Harris stop by the meeting at all today, and does she intend to host vice — Vance?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, I can say the vice president did not attend the meeting between the two presidents this morning. I would have to refer you to her team on how she wishes to move forward and — and her part in all of this. But you also heard from her last week when she talked about the importance, as well, of having a peaceful transition of power. So, leave that to her to answer.

Go ahead, Ed.

Q Just to work out a few of the details.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

Q So, it was the four of them in that room: the president —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yes.

Q — the president-elect —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yes.

Q — the chief of staff, the chief-elect — chief of staff designee?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yes, sir.

Q Were the two presidents ever left alone in the room?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I don’t have anything beyond what I shared. What I can say is it happened for almost two — approximately two hours, and it included the two — the current chief of staff, the incoming chief of staff, and obviously the two presidents.

I can’t speak if — to if the presidents had an opp- — the — the presidents themselves, president-elect and the pr- — President Biden had an opportunity to speak privately. I — I can’t speak to that. I didn’t ask.

Q Because it started over in the Diplomatic Room, right? And then they —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Right. So, to your point, you are correct. We sent out a pool note about how the — the president — President Biden and also First Lady Dr. Biden greeted President-elect Trump upon his arrival. And just to — just to add a little bit of color there, she gave — she gave the president-elect a handwritten letter to congratulate Mrs. Trump, and so — also expressed their readiness to be involved and engaged with her team — Mrs. Trump’s team. And so, that specific piece, obviously, I would — I would direct to the first lady’s office.

But, yes, they first met and greeted each other in the Diplomatic Room.

Q But Jake or nobody else came in or would —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: It was just the four.

Q — have met with them at all?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: It was just the four of them, as far as out — who — who was in the room with the president.

Q And it was in the Oval the whole time?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: As far — yes, it was in the Oval. The Ov- — the Oval meeting was in the Oval, as I just stated, and you flagged for — for me that they — they greeted the president — they, meaning the first lady and also the pres- — President Biden, greeted President Trump when — President-elect Trump when he arrived.

Q I had one other question about this weekend that people might wonder.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

Q It’s their third meeting since President Biden took office, but why bother having a meeting with Chinese President Xi if there’s only 68 days left to go on the Biden administration?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I think — I — look, this is — you know Joe Biden. He — he understands the important of having face-to-face, one-on-one conversations with world leaders. And I think Jake did a pretty good job laying out what — what’s next, what they are thinking about — the reason for having the bilat, but it is — it is an opportunity. They’re both going to be in Peru. They’re go- — both going to be attending the APEC conference. It was an opportunity for them to meet.

I think it’s important. The issues that they’re obviously going to speak about are important to the American people — you think about national security, you think about Indo-Pacific.

And so, you know, I think it’s in — this is very much something that the president would do: have that face to face, have those in-person conversations with other world leaders on issues that matter here to — to us and, obviously, globally.

Go ahead, Peter.

Q Thanks, Karine. Did President Biden show incoming President Trump anything classified?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: No.

Q No. Why not?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Why would he? This is a — this was an opportunity for them to speak candidly, openly. I’ve said to you that it was gracious, it was incredibly subs- — substantive. And I’ll just leave it there.

Q The last time these two were together in the same room was at the debate. They talked a fair amount about playing golf. Do you know if a plan was made — (laughter) — for them to play golf in President Biden’s retirement?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Actually, that’s not the last time they saw each other. They saw each other at September 11th.

I’m going to move on.

Go ahead, Ed.

Q Thanks, Karine. In — in the meeting, we saw a unified front related to a transition in the Oval Office meeting. But a lot was said on the campaign trail, like Trump is a dangerous “threat” to our country and our democracy. Was there an apology today?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I’m sorry?

Q Was there an apology from —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Apology from whom?

Q — from President Biden for the words — some of the words he used?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, you — an apology from the president — President Biden —

Q To President-elect Trump for some of the words that was used on the campaign trail.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Look — and I’ve answered this a couple of times about a “threat to democracy” in the past week. The president is going to always feel obligated to be honest with the American people.

What he says still stands. And it’s not just him. You heard this from former staffers. You’ve heard that from the former chief of staff, John Kelly, and others. You’ve heard it directly from the president — president-elect, the former president about “enemy of the people” very, very clear — very clear.

What we want to be also very clear about is the importance of listening to the will of the American people. There was an election. It is important to respect our institution. It is important to respect the free and fair elections. And that’s what this president is doing: leading by example and putting — putting that aside and putting the American people first.

But what he said still stands. And it’s not just him. I don’t — we should not just put this at the president. His own people said this. So, I want to be really, really clear about that and not forget the facts. There are facts here that we should certainly also lift up as you’re asking me these questions.

Go ahead, Anita.

Q Thank you. Did the two presidents discuss transatlantic security or climate change efforts and the U.S. role in that?

And relatedly, what is President Biden’s message to G20 leaders on these two issues and on the institutions and frameworks that hold them up — talking about NATO and the G- — and the Paris Agreement?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah. So, look, obviously, they talked about national security issues. Mentioned that already.

There was a substantive, pretty detailed set of questions that the president-elect presented the — the — President Biden with. They went back and forth on that. I don’t have anything. I’m not going to get into the nitty-gritty, into the specifics of what that top- — those topics were. Not something that I’m going to do from here.

And, look, the president is looking forward to going to the G20. You heard Jake do a pretty good lay down of the importance of the president going — it will be his last G20; obviously, he’s also going to go to APEC — APEC will be first — and the importance of meeting with these world leaders on issues and matters that ma- — that are important to the American people. That’s what you’re going to see.

This is going to be a continuation of the progress that we have made in almost four years on the world stage, whether it’s talking about Ukraine and continue to support Ukraine, talking about Indo-Pacific, talking about the Middle East and how to move forward here.

And so, all of those — all of those issues and topics are certainly going to come up, and the president looks forward to — to —

Q But what is message —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: — having those conversations.

Q — considering that we know that President-elect Trump does not look favorably upon NATO or upon the Paris climate change agreement?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: That’s for — something for the president-elect to — to speak to. I mean, he has.

What we have done here in the past four years is strengthen NATO. What we have done here is making sure that we strengthen our relationship with allies and partners. What we have done here is put the American people first, put our national security first, and really have conversation with lur- — world leaders on shared priorities.

And so, that’s going to continue in the next 68 days. And that’s the progress that the president wants to continue to have conversations about. And that’s what you’re going to see on this next OCONUS trip.

Go ahead.

Q To the swing counties in the back of the room, perhaps?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Go ahead.

Q Thank you. Thank you. I think, in this room, we’ve all watched the very, like, somber speeches that the president gave on democracy in —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

Q — Philadelphia, at the Capitol. And today, we see these pictures of two leaders chatting around the fireplace. It’s — it — there’s a stark contrast here. And isn’t there a risk that, in the future, when voters are faced with, you know, warnings about democracy, they’re just going to dismiss them and think, “This is just campaign stuff. This is just political”?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I think they’re two different things here. When it comes to what the president said — in the past year, even more s- — more so — about our democracy, the importance of our democracy, let’s not forget, you know, we saw that Americans do care about democracy. They care about protecting our freedoms. That is something that the president is never going to shy away from. He’s never going to shy away talking about that. And it is important on how we move forward. Right? It is important.

But what we’re seeing right now is also a democratic principle. Right? This is d- — we’re talking about — we’re talking about transition of power. It is about our democratic principle as well. It is about continuing that transfer of power. It is about continuing that democracy. They are — I know I said these are two different things but are also connected as well.

And so, for him to do that, for him to invite the president-elect and to have important conversations on issues that matter to the American people is actually part of what democracy looks like. And the president is never going to shy away from that.

And, again, were the elections what we had hoped? Absolutely not. We’re not — we’re not hiding that. We’ve been very clear about that. But we have to move forward. We have to move forward on behalf of the American people.

And what you saw and what you’re going to see when we talk about transition is about our dema- — democratic proc- — principles.

Go ahead.

AIDE: We have time for (inaudible).

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Okay.

Q Thank you, Karine. Going back to her question on the G20, is — Jake was saying that he is hoping for some progress. But is progress possible — possible when allies, the G20 allies are trying to understand and are expecting a change in the administration here? So, how does the — the incoming administration can undermine this progress they are trying to reach there and also progress with the Brazilian government on climate, democracy, and labor cooperation that are going to expect to discuss there?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yep. I’m not going to get ahead of what’s going to be discussed at the G20. And I’m not going to get ahead of what the Trump administration policies are going to look like. That is certainly something for them to address in how they move forward on domestic policies, national security policies, and they will do just that.

What I can talk about is the progress that the president wants to continue to — to make and the strengthening of our alliances, strengthening of our partners — partnerships and making sure that we continue to stand up with Ukraine as they continue to fight against Russia’s aggression, and a range — range of issues of Indo-Pacific to the Middle East. You’ve ba- — talked about climate change, especially as that relates to Brazil.

So, those issues are going to be discussed. We’ve made progress on all of those policies that we’re going back and forth on.

I’m just not going to — to speak to private conversations that are going to happen, what’s going to be discussed, and just speak to what we can do, what we’re looking to do, and why it’s important. This OCONUS that the president is going to go on is — is a — is going to be a continuation of what he has been able to do for almost four years now.

Q And what does a Trump victory mean to the world?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: You know, what I can say, and I’m going to sound like a broken record: What the president is going to do is continuing to make sure that we follow the — the election results, the will of the people majority of Americans decided. And what we can do is make sure that democracy continues here by doing this trans- — transition of power and doing it in an effective, orderly, peaceful way.

And the president is going to focus on the progress that he has made. He has relationships with these world leaders, obviously, not just for — some of them, not just the past almost four years but for some time. And, you know, he’ll have honest, direct conversations with them.

I’m just not going to get into philosophizing and getting into the bigger picture. I’m just going to focus on what’s ahead in the next 68 days.

Go ahead, Akayla. I think I have to —

Q Thanks, Karine.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: — head out.

Q Do you know if President-elect Trump has already started to receive intelligence briefings or if there’s plans to start doing those briefings again?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: That’s something for ODNI to speak to, not something for me to speak from — to from here.

Go ahead.

Q I’m going to kind of try and circle back on this.
You said that the conversation was cordial, graci- — gracious, substantive. Was there any acknowledgement about some of the harsh rhetoric that Donald Trump had issued regarding Kamala Harris, calling her, for example, a “low-IQ individual,” et cetera?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I — I don’t have anything to share beyond what I stated at the top and during these back-and-forths. I don’t have anything outside of that.

Go ahead. Go ahead.

Q Yeah. I — I was going to ask a similar question. Was there any acknowledgement or discussion about the election and how the vice president ran her campaign?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I don’t have anything else beyond what I just stated. (Laughs.)

Q Afghanistan, please.

Q Row six.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Go ahead, Phil.

Q I might be trying the same thing again and again, but —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah. Yeah.

Q — you talked about how this was a cordial discussion between the two of them —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

Q — how the incoming president came with a list of questions. Were there any top-level areas of agreement or overlap between the two presidents in terms of maybe challenges that are ahead for the country or potential solutions? Any areas of — of agreement?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: A lot was discussed. (Laughter.) It was detailed set of questions. The pregis- — president appreciated having a substantive conversation with the president-elect.

I’m not going to go into details. Maybe the president-elect will speak on his behalf on what he wants to share coming out of the meeting, but this is what we’re going to share from here.

Two hours is — nearly two hours is a long time to — to talk about what’s important for the American people and how to move forward. And I think that’s important. I think that’s impor- —

Q Had to try.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I appreciate the effort.

All right, everybody. Thank you so much.

Q For the —

Q Thanks, Karine.

(Cross-talk.)

Q For the record, can you just share or find out if there was any time that the two met individually so we’re all on the same page?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Okay.

Q And should there be — will there be photos?

Q On Afghanistan, Karine.

2:37 P.M. EST

The post Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan appeared first on The White House.

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

12:49 P.M. EST

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Good afternoon, everyone.

Q Good afternoon.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Oh, okay. (Laughter.) I’m excited to see you all too.

Okay. So, today, President Biden met with President-elect Trump for approximately two hours in the Oval Office. White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and incoming Chief of Staff Susie Wiles joined the meeting.

It was substantive meeting and exchange of views.

They discussed important national security and domestic policy issues facing the nation and the world.

President Biden also raised important items on Congress’s to-do list for the lame-duck session, including funding the government and providing the disaster supplemental funding the president requested.

Finally, the president rei- — reiterated what he said to the president-elect the day after the election and to the American people in the Rose Garden just last week: We will have an orderly transition and a peaceful transition of power.

With that, as you can see, I have the national security advisor with me, Jake Sullivan, who is going to preview APEC in Peru and also G20 in Brazil. The president is going to be leaving tomorrow, as you all know.

And, Jake, the floor is yours.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thanks, Karine. And hi, everybody. I’m going to make some brief comments about the president’s trip that he leaves on tomorrow, answer a few questions, because I know the issue you are most interested in is hearing from Karine about the meeting, so I will not dally too long up here. But I think it is important to lay out the president’s trip here over the next several days.

Tomorrow, he travels to South America. His first stop will be Peru for the APEC Summit — the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit — and then he’ll go on to Brazil for the first-ever presidential trip to the Amazon and then to the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

At APEC, the president will reinforce America’s leading role in the Indo-Pacific. And over the last four years, he has markedly enhanced our strategic position in this vital region, from our treaty alliances to AUKUS to the Quad to the historic trilateral with Japan and Korea.

And with respect to that trilateral, he will meet with President Yoon of South Korea and Prime Minister Ishiba of Japan to celebrate the historic cooperation between our three nations and discuss the importance of institutionalizing the progress we’ve made so that it carries forward through the transition.

While in Lima, President Biden will also meet with President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China. This will be the third in-person meeting between the two leaders since President Biden came into office and their final meeting as presidents. They previously met, as you know, in Bali in 2022 at the G20 Summit and at Woodside, California, near San Francisco in 2023 on the margins of APEC Summit, which was exactly one year and one day ago.

And throughout his time in office, President Biden and his team have worked to effectively and responsibly manage the competition between the United States and the PRC.

The president’s approach on the PRC has prioritized investments in sources of American strength at home, including growing the middle class and ensuring that America maintains its industrial capacity and its innovation edge in fields such as semiconductors and artificial intelligence.

He has strengthened our alliances around the world and especially in the Indo-Pacific, he has boosted American deterrence, and he’s ensured that America remains the partner of choice for countries both in the region and across the world.

The president has also taken commonsense measures to advance our national — national security and protect our most sensitive technologies to prevent them from being exploited or used against us by the PRC, including through significant new export control measures.

At the same time, the president has demonstrated that the U.S. and the PRC can manage our differences and prevent competition from veering into conflict or confrontation, and he has done that by ensuring the maintenance of open lines of communication at the leader level, at the military-to-military level, and at every level of our respective governments. And we’ve also worked to advance cooperation where our interests align, including on counternarcotics and climate change, which is what the people of our two countries expect and what the world expects.

And this meeting between President Biden and President Xi will be an opportunity to ensure a smooth transition and also to continue to keep those channels of communication open, including those especially critical military-to-military channels of communication.

Of course, in Lima, President Biden will also meet President Boluarte of Peru to mark the strength and durability of our bilateral relationship with Peru.

After that, the president will travel to Brazil, and he’ll start with a historic stop in the Amazon to underscore his personal commitment and America’s continuing commitment at all levels of government and across our private sector and civil society to combat climate change at home and abroad. And this has been, obviously, one of the defining causes of President Biden’s presidency.

While in Manaus, in the Amazon, President Biden will visit the rainforest, engage with local leaders who are working to preserve and protect this critical ecosystem. And as I noted, this will be the first-ever visit of a sitting U.S. president to the Amazon.

President Biden will then travel to Rio de Janeiro to par- — participate in his fourth and final G20 Leaders’ Summit.

High on the agenda there will be issues associated with debt sustainability for low- and middle-income countries; mobilizing finance for infrastructure — physical, digital, energy infrastructure around the world; and also dealing, obviously, with the major geopolitical issues of the day, from Ukraine to the Middle East.

As you all know, the G20 is a unique forum. It includes both our closest allies and partners as well as our adversaries, and pulling this group together around shared challenges is never easy, but we do expect to make some progress, particularly around debt and finance, during our time in Rio.

The president, of course, will also meet with President Lula of Brazil. The two leaders have really built a strong, productive relationship over the last four years, and they’re looking forward to have their final meeting together as presidents as well.

So, we’ve got a busy week ahead of us.

And with that, as I said, I’ll take a few questions and then turn it back over to Karine.

Yeah.

Q Thanks again for doing this, Jake. In the run-up to the election, President Biden warned that allies were worried about America’s commitment to the world. What’s his message to those allies after this election?

MR. SULLIVAN: Well, he is going to have the same message that he’s had for four years as president, which is that he believes that America’s allies are vital to America’s national security. They make us stronger. They multiply our capability. They take a burden off of our shoulders. They contribute to our common causes, including the cause of standing up for freedom and territorial integrity in Ukraine.

And as I noted in my opening comments, when he goes to this Asia-Pacific summit in Peru, he’ll go with our alliances in the Indo-Pacific at a literal all-time high — Japan, Korea, Australia, the Philippines — a really remarkable record over four years. And that’s what he’s going to hand off to President Trump.

And he is going to be making the case to our allies and, frankly, to our adversaries that America is standing with its alliances, investing in its alliances. And then asking its allies to step up and do their part, which they have done these past four years, is central to American strength and capacity in the world.

That will be his message. It’s a message of principle. It’s a message of practicality. And it’s been one of the causes of President Biden’s life.

Yeah.

Q Karine said national security obviously came up in the meeting today. You’ve suggested that the president would make the case to the president-elect not to walk away from Ukraine. Was that message conveyed? How was — it was — how was it received?

MR. SULLIVAN: Well, I’ll let Karine speak to what happened in the meeting. I will only note that President Biden reinforced his view that the United States standing with Ukraine on an ongoing basis is in our national security interest. And it’s in our national security interest because a strong Europe, a stable Europe, standing up to aggressors and dictators and pushing back against their aggression is vital to ensuring that we don’t end up getting dragged directly into a war, which has happened, obviously, twice in the 20th century on the European continent.

So, the president has made this case. He’ll continue to make this case both privately and publicly. And he will make the case that our investment in Ukraine, the — the funds that the Congress has appropriated, these aren’t just dollars that we’re picking up and shipping over to another country. They’re dollars we’re investing here in the United States in American jobs, producing American weapons that we send to Ukraine and American weapons that we are building to expand our own industrial base and our own military capacity to deter other adversaries all around the world.

So, he laid this out. He will continue to make this case as we go forward. And as we go through this transition, it will be our responsibility as the national security team to lay out for the incoming team both what we see and a — you know, in terms of the current situation — and how we believe that the United States of America, through this transition and beyond, can put Ukraine in the strongest possible position on the battlefield so that it’s in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table for an ultimate deal.

Yeah.

Q The families of the American hostages who are held in Gaza are going to meet with President Biden today. We’ve heard from the families that they would like to see the Biden administration and the incoming Trump administration work together to try to secure the release of these hostages.

Do you see any room for cooperation or coordination between your team, the president’s team, and Trump’s team to try to get a deal before Biden leaves office?

MR. SULLIVAN: I met with the hostages myself yesterday, and, as you noted, President Biden will meet with the — the families of the hostages yesterday, and President Biden will meet with them very shortly. And they asked me this question, and I was very simple and emphatic with them: Yes, of course, we’re prepared to work with the incoming team in common cause on a bipartisan basis to do everything in our collective American power to secure the release of the hostages, both living and deceased.

So, we are open to have that engagement, have that collaboration, and we will continue to work in every remaining day that President Biden has in office, that we have in these jobs to try to bring those — those hostages home to their loved ones.

Yeah.

Q Just to clarify real quick, though. There’s been no discussion yet with the Trump team about doing that?

MR. SULLIVAN: Well, I will say that this is a topic — obviously, the American hostages being held in Gaza — that President Biden and President Trump covered today, but we have not had the opportunity to engage with the incoming team yet.

I — I’m only expressing, standing here today, as I did to the hostage families yesterday, we are very much willing to do so. And we’ve sent a signal to the incoming team that we’re prepared to work with them on this issue, as with every other issue, because President Biden’s cardinal direction to us is ensure a smooth and orderly transition.

Q O- — on that, are you finding the Israelis as responsive to the Biden administration inquiries or requests, given that we know the prime minister is in pretty frequent touch with the president-elect?

MR. SULLIVAN: I had the opportunity to sit down yesterday with the Israeli minister of strategic affairs, Ron Dermer. We had a detailed discussion about every element of the current situation in the Middle East, and it was a constructive discussion. We are still actively working in support of our common efforts to push back against our common adversaries, to try to deal with the situation in Gaza, in Lebanon, and directly with respect to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

And just to give you an example, we are working on an ongoing, daily basis to try to increase the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza, giving the suffering of the innocent civilians there who are trapped amidst the crossfire between the IDF and — and the terrorist group Hamas. We have made some progress in that regard. I — we extracted further commitments from the Israeli side over the course of the past couple of days. We want to see those commitments followed through on.

So, we believe that we can continue to work across the board on all of the relevant issues, whether it’s humanitarian assistance or it’s ensuring the defense of Israel against Iranian attacks or it’s working on ceasefire efforts and — and a hostage deal in Gaza or it’s ultimately bringing a diplomatic resolution to Lebanon, which we’re actively working on. We’ll continue to do that every day that we have remaining in office.

Yeah.

Q Jake, I know you can’t speak to what happened in this — in the meeting earlier. We’ll ask Karine about that. But eight years ago, then-President Obama explicitly warned incoming-President Donald Trump about the urgent threat posed by North Korea. He said it was the most urgent national security threat the U.S. was facing at the time.

What would you communicate to your national security advisor peer, who is going to be following you in this job? What is the most urgent national security threat facing the United States today, as Donald Trump prepares to take office?

MR. SULLIVAN: Well, I would say two things in answer to that question. The first is that if you look out at a strategic level, the competition with the People’s Republic of China is going to be defining for what the world looks like over the course of the next 10, 20, and 30 years, and so that has got to be a paramount priority for the incoming administration.

And the person who’s been named as my successor, the person who’s been floated as the secretary of State, these are people who have very much focused on that challenge, and we’ll look forward to talking to them about how we’ve approached it and obviously pass on the current state of play.

Then there’s the most immediate issue, which is Iran and its proxy groups continue to take actions that directly threaten Americans and American interests in the Middle East, and that has to be dealt with on an urgent basis.

Now, that’s at the macro level and the micro level. In between those two, you have an ongoing war of aggression by Russia against Ukraine representing a larger threat to European security and, therefore, global security. And you’ve got North Korea coming behind to provide troops in that war.

So, these are all issues for which we have clear approaches, working in coordination with allies and partners, and we are going to try to ensure that we pass off each of these areas to the next team in a way that is as smooth as possible.

Q Last time Donald —

MR. SULLIVAN: Yeah.

Q Last time he was going to — just to follow up quickly. Last time, in that same meeting, Obama told Trump that he had real concerns about the hiring of a national security advisor, Mike Flynn. Donald Trump ultimately hired Mike Flynn. Do you have any concerns about the names that you have heard mentioned so far and announced so far by Donald Trump to serve in his administration in a national security role?

MR. SULLIVAN: I know some of them. I’ve engaged with some of them. And — and people like, for example, Congressman Waltz, who’s been named to be my replacement, he’s somebody that I have engaged with in the past. I respect his service to this country in uniform. He’s put his life on the line. I respect his service in Congress.

He and I obviously don’t see eye to eye on every issue, but I am very much looking forward to engaging him over these next 60 days, as I said, so that we can have this smooth handoff.

There are other people that he’s named who I just don’t know, I haven’t met, and therefore can’t comment on.

Q Thank you.

MR. SULLIVAN: Yeah.

Q So, you — you talk about wanting to engage, wanting to smooth this transition. Why hasn’t it happened yet? Is there — is the signing of the MOUs an actual issue that is preventing you from coordinating with the Trump — incoming Trump team?

MR. SULLIVAN: So, I’ll defer to Karine to kind of go into the nitty-gritty. What I’ll say at a broad level, though, is the MOU creates the opening for the landing teams to arrive at the agencies, to include the NSC.

But that doesn’t mean that we can’t reach out and get — you know, and express our willingness to engage with our counterparts — our incoming counterparts. We’ve done that. And so, I expect that in a matter of days here, we should be able to have some engagement.

Of course, that depends on whether the incoming team wants to engage, and — and that will be up to them.

But for our part, we are more than willing to do what is our responsibility as directed by the president and, frankly, as dictated by the Constitution, which is to ensure the peaceful transition of power.

Yeah.

Q I just have a China-related question as well. You know, the — the Biden administration largely left in place the Trump-era tariffs on China. The policy hasn’t been — towards China, it hasn’t been wildly divergent. Do you see the potential for bipartisan agreement on the relationship with China in the next administration or going forward?

MR. SULLIVAN: I think for us to succeed in the long-term competition with the PRC, it will require a bipartisan foundation. The best traditions of American foreign policy have always had a bipartisan element. And many aspects of the policy that we have pursued in this administration, with respect to the PRC and with respect to the Indo-Pacific, have been bipartisan.

By the way, the same thing is true with respect to Ukraine, where there has been strong bipartisan support and votes in both the House and the Senate for the resources and the strategy for Ukraine.

So, from our perspective, we would like to see that continue. Now, obviously, we don’t know what the incoming team is going to do, how divergent they will be. Those will be decisions they take. Not for me to comment on.

All I can say is that when it comes to investing in our alliances, the sources of strength at home, the protections of our advanced technologies, these are things we’re going to advocate continue because we think that they are not political issues. They’re American issues that can serve all of the people of this country.

Yeah.

Q Thanks, Jake. Will the president raise this alleged hack by a Chinese hacking group when he meets with President Xi, and are you planning any kind of consequences for that hack?

MR. SULLIVAN: It is a significant issue. I expect that the FBI and CISA will have an update in terms of their investigation, which is ongoing into the hack, soon. We here at the White House have stood up at the — at the NSC what’s called the UCG, a Unified Coordinating Group, in order to coordinate the entire U.S. government to be able to deal with this hack, which is a hack of private telecommunications providers, but private telecommunications providers that provide services to U.S. government personnel, among others. So, you will hear from the FBI and CISA on that.

I do expect this will come up in the meeting in Peru.

And I’m not going to speak to consequences from this podium. I will only say that we have made clear over time that we will respond when we see actions taken, in terms of cyberattacks, cyber espionage, cyber intrusions. That has been a feature of our policy to date. It will remain a feature of our policy going forward.

I’ll take just a couple more and then let Karine take over.

Go ahead.

Q Thanks, Jake. Can you give us a sense of what else President Biden said to President Trump about Russia in their meeting?

And also, with regard to China, will he pass on any tips or color from his meeting with President Trump to President Xi when they meet? And what will his message be to — to President Xi?

MR. SULLIVAN: I’ve already mildly violated the not reading out the meeting proviso. (Laughter.) So, I will pass that off to —

Q Keep going.

Q Not a problem with that here.

MR. SULLIVAN: — I will pass that off to Karine. Mild — mild violations.

But with respect to his meeting with President Xi, I don’t expect him to pass messages. Obviously, President Trump, when he comes into office, will have his opportunity to engage directly with President Xi.

But I will observe that transitions are uniquely consequential moments in geopolitics. They’re a time when competitors and adversaries can see possibly opportunity, because you have this — this change in government here.

And so, part of what President Biden will communicate is that we need to maintain stability, clarity, predictability through this transition between the United States and China.

And he will also really reinforce the point that in order for us to manage this competition responsibly going forward, we have to sustain, over the long term, the channels of communication at every level, particularly the military-to-military level.

And then, of course, he will look to try to consolidate progress on areas where we can work together, for example, on counternarcotics and fentanyl coordination, and on trying to manage the safety risks associated with artificial intelligence.

So, it’s an important meeting. It will not be just a valedictory. Although there will be an element of reflecting over the course of their long relationship, there is actual work to do in this critical moment between the U.S. and China to ensure that we don’t run into any problems in the next two months in this transition of power.

Last question.

Q Can you sort of explain the strategy for the remaining drawdown authority for Ukraine, and also, if the administration is going to ask for any additional drawdown authority in like an end-of-the-year CR or spending plan?

MR. SULLIVAN: So, the president has made clear and he has directed his team to ensure that every dollar that the Congress gave to him, authorized him to spend, he will spend on behalf of Ukraine before he leaves office.

Now, again, these are not dollars he is putting on an airplane and flying across the ocean. These are dollars he is investing in the American defense industrial base. As we provide weapons to Ukraine, we make new weapons to give to the U.S. military.

All of those dollars will be spent, will be obligated by the time he leaves office on January 20th.

Therefore, it only stands to reason that in the next two months, the administration will signal to Congress that we would like to see additional funds for Ukraine for 2025 so that they can be in the best possible position, the strongest possible position to negotiate, to ensure they achieve their objectives, that they win at the negotiating table.

Now, what form will that take — CR, et cetera — I’m going to not get myself in trouble by turning into the OMB director up here. I will just say that the administration very much sees the necessity and the logic of seeking additional resources for 2025 since we are doing what Congress asked us to do, which is dispersing the funds they gave us for 2024.

And with that, I’ll turn it over to Karine.

(Cross-talk.)

Q Jake, on the Amazon trip —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Thank you, Jake.

Q Congrats on becoming a congressional spouse. (Laughter.)

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I just have one more thing, and then I’ll go into your questions.

So, today, the president and the first lady welcomed nearly 200 education and workforce leaders to the White House for the Biden-Harris administration’s Classroom [to] Career Summit.

The administration’s Investing in America agenda is creating millions of good-paying jobs, many of which do not require a four-year college degree. And its investments will continue to drive job creation for years to come.

The summit highlighted the record progress to expand career pathways to these good-paying jobs in infrastructure, clean energy, ad- — advanced manufacturing, and so much more.

With that, Josh, it’s good to see you, as always.

Q Goo- — good to see you, Karine. Regarding the meeting.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah. (Laughter.)

Q President Biden has given a lot of statements about his concern for the U.S. democracy. Did he share any of those concerns with President-elect Trump in their meeting about what he feels should be done or needs to be done?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, I’m not going to go into granular detail of what was discussed in — in the meeting.

What I can say: that it was indeed very cordial, very gracious, and substantive. And I mentioned at the top, national security was discussed. Domestic polishy — policy issues were discussed.

I had an opportunity to speak with the president in the Oval Office right before coming out to do this press briefing, because I wanted to make sure that I got what the president wanted to share with all of you, so certainly that everything that I’m saying is — is sanctioned, if you will, by the president.

He wanted you all to know that the president-elect, again, was gracious, came with a detailed set of questions. It was, again, substantive.

But I do want to take a little bit of a step back here, because it’s really important to note, and you hear — you’re going to hear me continuing to say this over and over again: the importance of having a smooth transition, an importance of having an orderly transition.

The president respects the will of the — the American people and wants to make sure that occurs. That is what he believes the American people deserve.

And so, that is as far as I can go. That is what I am sharing with you from the president directly.

And — and, look, we’re going to make sure, as Jake Sullivan was saying, that his team has what they need. Right? They want to make sure that it is indeed an efficient, effective transition so that we can — so that we hand over the people’s business so that they can continue the people’s business.

Q Can you say how President Biden answered some of those detailed questions?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I will say that the president certainly looked forward to — looked forward to the meeting, appreciated the conversation, and answered any questions that the president-elect had; offered up his — his thoughts. But I’m not going to go any further than that.

Go ahead, Mary.

Q You said “gracious,” “cordial,” “substantive.”

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

Q The president obviously hit on a wide range of issues, but did he get a sense that the issues that he was impressing upon, that any advice he was giving was being well received?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I think so. I think that’s why the president was saying — was wanting me to let you all know that there was a — you know, a very good back-and-forth, and it was substantive, as I mentioned before.

And I want to be mindful. It was a private conversation, so I don’t want to go into specifics or details.

But, look, they met for more than two hours. They met for a very long time — or nearly two hours, pardon me. And I think by — the length of the meeting tells you that they had an in-depth conversation on an array of issues.

And so, look, the president reached out to the president-elect, wanting to make sure that he gave an opportunity to the president-elect, afforded him that opportunity to — to have a meeting with him to talk about the different issues that matter to the American people.

But nearly two hours says — I think says a lot about how the meeting went.

Q Any plans to keep a line of communication open?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: The president is always going to, obviously, keep that line of communication open to the president-elect. We’ve got to remember, this is not about the two presidents. This is not about President Biden or President-elect Trump. This is about the American people and what’s right for the American people. And, if anything, the president has led by example — right? — over the last week or — week — week now on making sure that we have this cordial transition of power.

Q Can I ask one on just one other topic?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

Q President-elect Trump’s nominee for Defense secretary has questioned whether or not women should serve in combat roles in the military. Wondering what the administration makes of that. Is there any concern about women’s ability to serve in certain roles going forward?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I think we’ve made ourselves really clear. I’m not going to speak to this pick. That’s not — the president is g- — the — the president-elect is going to lay out his — certainly, his — his personnel and who he wants to fill these Cabinet position, who he wants to be in the White House with him. And we will give them the space to do that.

But I think we’ve been very, very clear about how we see the importance of — of gender equality, the importance of women in the workforce. I think we have been an administration that has led on that issue, and certainly we do not agree with those views. But that is for the pr- — obviously, the president-elect to — to speak to his picks, and I’m going to let them do that.

Go ahead, Jeff.

Q You said the president-elect came with a detailed list of questions.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: (Laughs.)

Q That’s — that’s surprising to me. What — what was on his list?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I’m not going to go into details of what was on the list. I wanted — I shared that and the president wanted you all to know that because we want to be very clear, it was a- — actually a substantive meeting — nearly two hours.

There was a lot discussed. There was a lot of back-and-forth. And I’m not going to go into specifics. I think if the president-elect wants to share his set of questions to President Biden, he certainly can and — and will, if he chooses.

But wanted to give you as much information as I could without — without, you know, going into too much specifics on a private conversation.

Q Was the list typed out on a piece of paper?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: (Laughs.) I don’t have — I appreciate the — the effort there, Jeff. I don’t have anything beyond that.

Q Did the issue of the fact that President Trump did not acknowledge Bi- — President Biden as the winner in the 2020 election come up today?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: What we want to do is move forward. We do. W-

Q Really?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: No, seriously. What we want to do is move forward. We respect the will of the people. There was an election, as you know, last week, and the American people spoke. And so, the president is going to make sure that he puts the American people first. He’s going to make sure that we move forward in this process and this transition process in a way that is respectful to the American people and to sh- — to lead by example.

And so, that’s our focus. That’s what we want to do. I think the president has shown that in the past week of — of that leadership. And so, that’s what you’re going to hear. That’s what we’re going to continue to do in the 68 days that we have left in this administration.

Q I understand that. I guess —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yep.

Q — that just seems like a piece of unfinished business between them. Did it come up at all?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Look, that is something certainly that I would leave for the president-elect to speak to. What I can speak to is this president wanting to focus on the American people, wanting to focus on issues that matter — domestic policy issues, national security issues that are critical and important in how we move forward as a country. That’s what the president wanted to focus on.

Again, it was gracious. It was substantive. And I think that’s what’s important. And what we are showing the American people is how you do this — how do you have a peaceful transition of power, how it looks leading by example. And that is quintessential Joe Biden, I believe.

Go ahead.

Q Yeah. Thanks, Karine. I’m just trying to understand. I mean, besides demonstrating —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

Q — a peaceful transfer of power, what was the big message that President Biden was trying to convey to incoming-President Trump?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I think just that, and the American people, you know. You h- — all had an — those who were able to be in the room got to see the — the two presidents sitting side by side, shaking hands. You heard what the president-elect talked about politics — politics being tough and understanding what that looks like. We get that as well. You know?

And I’ll go back to what we said last week. Did the elections turn out the way we wanted? Absolutely not. Are we disappointed? Yes, we’re disappointed.

But, again, there was an election. The American people decided. And what the president wants to focus on is what it looks like — what it looks like to — to move forward, to put the country first, put — to put the American people first and move forward in a — in a respectful way. And I think that was also the message that you saw from this president today.

Q A- — and then, does the White House have any reaction to this Department of Government Efficiency that Trump announced yesterday? He’s brought on Elon Musk and Vivek R- — Ramaswamy to lead. Says the group is — is ta- — is being tasked to find ways to cut government spending waste, regulations. Does the White House have any concerns about this effort, or do you think maybe it’s a good idea to look at these things?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I — no comment.

Q Okay.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I’m not going to comment.

Go ahead.

Q You’ve talked about ensuring that the next administration has all the resources they need for this transition, but one thing that needs to happen in order for the Trump transition to have access to agencies and such are these signings of the memorandums —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

Q — of understanding with both the GSA and the White House, including an ethics plan. Did that come up in any way in the conversation today, even if it was just between Jeff Zients and Susie Wiles?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: And I was just going to say that. As you know, Jeff Zients, the chief of staff, had an opportunity to speak with the incoming chief of staff. I have not spoken to Jeff on if that issue came up, but Jeff has been leading this effort of making sure that we have that smooth transition of power. We are ready. We are ready to go. We — and I’ve also mentioned that the cochairs of the — of the Trump transition have said that they are — they are — in public, have said that they are going to sign the MOUs. So, I’m going to have to leave it to them.

We are ready. And Jake, I think, put it really well when he said it doesn’t mean that we can’t still have conversations. It doesn’t mean we can’t engage with our counterparts or those who are — have been picked by the president-elect to come into this administration. Certainly, we are open to that and want that to happen.

But I would have to, you know, refer you to the Trump transition, who have — they have said they would sign those MO- — MOUs.

Q And back in 2000, then-Vice President Al Gore actually hosted George W. Bush a few days after he had conceded the election. When Bush came to meet with Clinton, he then went on to meet with Gore. Did Vice President Harris stop by the meeting at all today, and does she intend to host vice — Vance?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, I can say the vice president did not attend the meeting between the two presidents this morning. I would have to refer you to her team on how she wishes to move forward and — and her part in all of this. But you also heard from her last week when she talked about the importance, as well, of having a peaceful transition of power. So, leave that to her to answer.

Go ahead, Ed.

Q Just to work out a few of the details.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

Q So, it was the four of them in that room: the president —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yes.

Q — the president-elect —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yes.

Q — the chief of staff, the chief-elect — chief of staff designee?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yes, sir.

Q Were the two presidents ever left alone in the room?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I don’t have anything beyond what I shared. What I can say is it happened for almost two — approximately two hours, and it included the two — the current chief of staff, the incoming chief of staff, and obviously the two presidents.

I can’t speak if — to if the presidents had an opp- — the — the presidents themselves, president-elect and the pr- — President Biden had an opportunity to speak privately. I — I can’t speak to that. I didn’t ask.

Q Because it started over in the Diplomatic Room, right? And then they —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Right. So, to your point, you are correct. We sent out a pool note about how the — the president — President Biden and also First Lady Dr. Biden greeted President-elect Trump upon his arrival. And just to — just to add a little bit of color there, she gave — she gave the president-elect a handwritten letter to congratulate Mrs. Trump, and so — also expressed their readiness to be involved and engaged with her team — Mrs. Trump’s team. And so, that specific piece, obviously, I would — I would direct to the first lady’s office.

But, yes, they first met and greeted each other in the Diplomatic Room.

Q But Jake or nobody else came in or would —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: It was just the four.

Q — have met with them at all?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: It was just the four of them, as far as out — who — who was in the room with the president.

Q And it was in the Oval the whole time?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: As far — yes, it was in the Oval. The Ov- — the Oval meeting was in the Oval, as I just stated, and you flagged for — for me that they — they greeted the president — they, meaning the first lady and also the pres- — President Biden, greeted President Trump when — President-elect Trump when he arrived.

Q I had one other question about this weekend that people might wonder.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

Q It’s their third meeting since President Biden took office, but why bother having a meeting with Chinese President Xi if there’s only 68 days left to go on the Biden administration?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I think — I — look, this is — you know Joe Biden. He — he understands the important of having face-to-face, one-on-one conversations with world leaders. And I think Jake did a pretty good job laying out what — what’s next, what they are thinking about — the reason for having the bilat, but it is — it is an opportunity. They’re both going to be in Peru. They’re go- — both going to be attending the APEC conference. It was an opportunity for them to meet.

I think it’s important. The issues that they’re obviously going to speak about are important to the American people — you think about national security, you think about Indo-Pacific.

And so, you know, I think it’s in — this is very much something that the president would do: have that face to face, have those in-person conversations with other world leaders on issues that matter here to — to us and, obviously, globally.

Go ahead, Peter.

Q Thanks, Karine. Did President Biden show incoming President Trump anything classified?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: No.

Q No. Why not?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Why would he? This is a — this was an opportunity for them to speak candidly, openly. I’ve said to you that it was gracious, it was incredibly subs- — substantive. And I’ll just leave it there.

Q The last time these two were together in the same room was at the debate. They talked a fair amount about playing golf. Do you know if a plan was made — (laughter) — for them to play golf in President Biden’s retirement?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Actually, that’s not the last time they saw each other. They saw each other at September 11th.

I’m going to move on.

Go ahead, Ed.

Q Thanks, Karine. In — in the meeting, we saw a unified front related to a transition in the Oval Office meeting. But a lot was said on the campaign trail, like Trump is a dangerous “threat” to our country and our democracy. Was there an apology today?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I’m sorry?

Q Was there an apology from —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Apology from whom?

Q — from President Biden for the words — some of the words he used?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, you — an apology from the president — President Biden —

Q To President-elect Trump for some of the words that was used on the campaign trail.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Look — and I’ve answered this a couple of times about a “threat to democracy” in the past week. The president is going to always feel obligated to be honest with the American people.

What he says still stands. And it’s not just him. You heard this from former staffers. You’ve heard that from the former chief of staff, John Kelly, and others. You’ve heard it directly from the president — president-elect, the former president about “enemy of the people” very, very clear — very clear.

What we want to be also very clear about is the importance of listening to the will of the American people. There was an election. It is important to respect our institution. It is important to respect the free and fair elections. And that’s what this president is doing: leading by example and putting — putting that aside and putting the American people first.

But what he said still stands. And it’s not just him. I don’t — we should not just put this at the president. His own people said this. So, I want to be really, really clear about that and not forget the facts. There are facts here that we should certainly also lift up as you’re asking me these questions.

Go ahead, Anita.

Q Thank you. Did the two presidents discuss transatlantic security or climate change efforts and the U.S. role in that?

And relatedly, what is President Biden’s message to G20 leaders on these two issues and on the institutions and frameworks that hold them up — talking about NATO and the G- — and the Paris Agreement?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah. So, look, obviously, they talked about national security issues. Mentioned that already.

There was a substantive, pretty detailed set of questions that the president-elect presented the — the — President Biden with. They went back and forth on that. I don’t have anything. I’m not going to get into the nitty-gritty, into the specifics of what that top- — those topics were. Not something that I’m going to do from here.

And, look, the president is looking forward to going to the G20. You heard Jake do a pretty good lay down of the importance of the president going — it will be his last G20; obviously, he’s also going to go to APEC — APEC will be first — and the importance of meeting with these world leaders on issues and matters that ma- — that are important to the American people. That’s what you’re going to see.

This is going to be a continuation of the progress that we have made in almost four years on the world stage, whether it’s talking about Ukraine and continue to support Ukraine, talking about Indo-Pacific, talking about the Middle East and how to move forward here.

And so, all of those — all of those issues and topics are certainly going to come up, and the president looks forward to — to —

Q But what is message —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: — having those conversations.

Q — considering that we know that President-elect Trump does not look favorably upon NATO or upon the Paris climate change agreement?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: That’s for — something for the president-elect to — to speak to. I mean, he has.

What we have done here in the past four years is strengthen NATO. What we have done here is making sure that we strengthen our relationship with allies and partners. What we have done here is put the American people first, put our national security first, and really have conversation with lur- — world leaders on shared priorities.

And so, that’s going to continue in the next 68 days. And that’s the progress that the president wants to continue to have conversations about. And that’s what you’re going to see on this next OCONUS trip.

Go ahead.

Q To the swing counties in the back of the room, perhaps?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Go ahead.

Q Thank you. Thank you. I think, in this room, we’ve all watched the very, like, somber speeches that the president gave on democracy in —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

Q — Philadelphia, at the Capitol. And today, we see these pictures of two leaders chatting around the fireplace. It’s — it — there’s a stark contrast here. And isn’t there a risk that, in the future, when voters are faced with, you know, warnings about democracy, they’re just going to dismiss them and think, “This is just campaign stuff. This is just political”?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I think they’re two different things here. When it comes to what the president said — in the past year, even more s- — more so — about our democracy, the importance of our democracy, let’s not forget, you know, we saw that Americans do care about democracy. They care about protecting our freedoms. That is something that the president is never going to shy away from. He’s never going to shy away talking about that. And it is important on how we move forward. Right? It is important.

But what we’re seeing right now is also a democratic principle. Right? This is d- — we’re talking about — we’re talking about transition of power. It is about our democratic principle as well. It is about continuing that transfer of power. It is about continuing that democracy. They are — I know I said these are two different things but are also connected as well.

And so, for him to do that, for him to invite the president-elect and to have important conversations on issues that matter to the American people is actually part of what democracy looks like. And the president is never going to shy away from that.

And, again, were the elections what we had hoped? Absolutely not. We’re not — we’re not hiding that. We’ve been very clear about that. But we have to move forward. We have to move forward on behalf of the American people.

And what you saw and what you’re going to see when we talk about transition is about our dema- — democratic proc- — principles.

Go ahead.

AIDE: We have time for (inaudible).

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Okay.

Q Thank you, Karine. Going back to her question on the G20, is — Jake was saying that he is hoping for some progress. But is progress possible — possible when allies, the G20 allies are trying to understand and are expecting a change in the administration here? So, how does the — the incoming administration can undermine this progress they are trying to reach there and also progress with the Brazilian government on climate, democracy, and labor cooperation that are going to expect to discuss there?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yep. I’m not going to get ahead of what’s going to be discussed at the G20. And I’m not going to get ahead of what the Trump administration policies are going to look like. That is certainly something for them to address in how they move forward on domestic policies, national security policies, and they will do just that.

What I can talk about is the progress that the president wants to continue to — to make and the strengthening of our alliances, strengthening of our partners — partnerships and making sure that we continue to stand up with Ukraine as they continue to fight against Russia’s aggression, and a range — range of issues of Indo-Pacific to the Middle East. You’ve ba- — talked about climate change, especially as that relates to Brazil.

So, those issues are going to be discussed. We’ve made progress on all of those policies that we’re going back and forth on.

I’m just not going to — to speak to private conversations that are going to happen, what’s going to be discussed, and just speak to what we can do, what we’re looking to do, and why it’s important. This OCONUS that the president is going to go on is — is a — is going to be a continuation of what he has been able to do for almost four years now.

Q And what does a Trump victory mean to the world?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: You know, what I can say, and I’m going to sound like a broken record: What the president is going to do is continuing to make sure that we follow the — the election results, the will of the people majority of Americans decided. And what we can do is make sure that democracy continues here by doing this trans- — transition of power and doing it in an effective, orderly, peaceful way.

And the president is going to focus on the progress that he has made. He has relationships with these world leaders, obviously, not just for — some of them, not just the past almost four years but for some time. And, you know, he’ll have honest, direct conversations with them.

I’m just not going to get into philosophizing and getting into the bigger picture. I’m just going to focus on what’s ahead in the next 68 days.

Go ahead, Akayla. I think I have to —

Q Thanks, Karine.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: — head out.

Q Do you know if President-elect Trump has already started to receive intelligence briefings or if there’s plans to start doing those briefings again?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: That’s something for ODNI to speak to, not something for me to speak from — to from here.

Go ahead.

Q I’m going to kind of try and circle back on this.
You said that the conversation was cordial, graci- — gracious, substantive. Was there any acknowledgement about some of the harsh rhetoric that Donald Trump had issued regarding Kamala Harris, calling her, for example, a “low-IQ individual,” et cetera?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I — I don’t have anything to share beyond what I stated at the top and during these back-and-forths. I don’t have anything outside of that.

Go ahead. Go ahead.

Q Yeah. I — I was going to ask a similar question. Was there any acknowledgement or discussion about the election and how the vice president ran her campaign?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I don’t have anything else beyond what I just stated. (Laughs.)

Q Afghanistan, please.

Q Row six.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Go ahead, Phil.

Q I might be trying the same thing again and again, but —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah. Yeah.

Q — you talked about how this was a cordial discussion between the two of them —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

Q — how the incoming president came with a list of questions. Were there any top-level areas of agreement or overlap between the two presidents in terms of maybe challenges that are ahead for the country or potential solutions? Any areas of — of agreement?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: A lot was discussed. (Laughter.) It was detailed set of questions. The pregis- — president appreciated having a substantive conversation with the president-elect.

I’m not going to go into details. Maybe the president-elect will speak on his behalf on what he wants to share coming out of the meeting, but this is what we’re going to share from here.

Two hours is — nearly two hours is a long time to — to talk about what’s important for the American people and how to move forward. And I think that’s important. I think that’s impor- —

Q Had to try.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I appreciate the effort.

All right, everybody. Thank you so much.

Q For the —

Q Thanks, Karine.

(Cross-talk.)

Q For the record, can you just share or find out if there was any time that the two met individually so we’re all on the same page?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Okay.

Q And should there be — will there be photos?

Q On Afghanistan, Karine.

2:37 P.M. EST

The post Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan appeared first on The White House.

Oval Office

11:07 A.M. EST

PRESIDENT BIDEN:  Well, Mr. President-Elect and former president —

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Thank you very much, Joe.

PRESIDENT BIDEN:  — and — Donald, congratulations.

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Thank you very much.

PRESIDENT BIDEN:  And looking forward to having a, like we said, smooth transition — do everything we can to make sure you’re accommodated, what you need.  And we’re going to get a chance to talk about some of that today.  So —

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Good.

PRESIDENT BIDEN:  — welcome.  Welcome back.

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Thank you very much.  And thank you very much.

And politics is tough.  And it’s, many cases, not a very nice world, but it is a nice world today.  And I appreciate it very much — a transition that’s so smooth it’ll be as smooth as it can get.

And I very much appreciate that, Joe.

PRESIDENT BIDEN:  You’re welcome.

Thank you all.

11:08 A.M. EST

The post Remarks by President Biden and President-Elect Trump in a Meeting appeared first on The White House.

Oval Office

11:07 A.M. EST

PRESIDENT BIDEN:  Well, Mr. President-Elect and former president —

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Thank you very much, Joe.

PRESIDENT BIDEN:  — and — Donald, congratulations.

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Thank you very much.

PRESIDENT BIDEN:  And looking forward to having a, like we said, smooth transition — do everything we can to make sure you’re accommodated, what you need.  And we’re going to get a chance to talk about some of that today.  So —

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Good.

PRESIDENT BIDEN:  — welcome.  Welcome back.

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Thank you very much.  And thank you very much.

And politics is tough.  And it’s, many cases, not a very nice world, but it is a nice world today.  And I appreciate it very much — a transition that’s so smooth it’ll be as smooth as it can get.

And I very much appreciate that, Joe.

PRESIDENT BIDEN:  You’re welcome.

Thank you all.

11:08 A.M. EST

The post Remarks by President Biden and President-Elect Trump in a Meeting appeared first on The White House.

In July, the United States, Canada, and Finland announced a groundbreaking new partnership that advances our national security by spurring the production of polar icebreakers and other capabilities. This partnership will ensure that the polar and Arctic regions remain peaceful and cooperative. 

Today, just months after we kicked off this partnership, we are taking a significant step forward to enhance collaboration on the production of these vessels through the exchange of knowledge, information, and resources among our countries. This transformative partnership will enhance our ability to uphold international rules and maintain security in the polar and Arctic regions, while at the same time laying the foundation for a resilient and competitive shipbuilding industry that is capable of meeting both national and global demand for these critical assets.

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The post Statement from National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on MOU Signed by United States, Canada, and Finland to Build Arctic and Polar Icebreakers appeared first on The White House.

In July, the United States, Canada, and Finland announced a groundbreaking new partnership that advances our national security by spurring the production of polar icebreakers and other capabilities. This partnership will ensure that the polar and Arctic regions remain peaceful and cooperative. 

Today, just months after we kicked off this partnership, we are taking a significant step forward to enhance collaboration on the production of these vessels through the exchange of knowledge, information, and resources among our countries. This transformative partnership will enhance our ability to uphold international rules and maintain security in the polar and Arctic regions, while at the same time laying the foundation for a resilient and competitive shipbuilding industry that is capable of meeting both national and global demand for these critical assets.

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The post Statement from National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on MOU Signed by United States, Canada, and Finland to Build Arctic and Polar Icebreakers appeared first on The White House.

Today’s report shows CPI inflation was 2.6% in October, close to its pre-pandemic rate. This has been a hard-fought recovery, but we are making progress for working families, with gas prices down to $3.08 per gallon, insulin prices down from as much as $400 to $35 per month for seniors, and household incomes up by $4,000 more than prices during this Administration. We will keep fighting to lower costs for families on key items like housing and health care, and against policies that would undermine our progress on bringing inflation down.

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The post Statement from National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard on the October 2024 Consumer Price Index appeared first on The White House.

Today’s report shows CPI inflation was 2.6% in October, close to its pre-pandemic rate. This has been a hard-fought recovery, but we are making progress for working families, with gas prices down to $3.08 per gallon, insulin prices down from as much as $400 to $35 per month for seniors, and household incomes up by $4,000 more than prices during this Administration. We will keep fighting to lower costs for families on key items like housing and health care, and against policies that would undermine our progress on bringing inflation down.

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The post Statement from National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard on the October 2024 Consumer Price Index appeared first on The White House.

Colleagues, on behalf of President Biden: the United States is here at COP29 to help produce successful outcomes that keep 1.5 C alive.

We face an urgent question: do we secure sustainable prosperity for our countries, or do we condemn our most vulnerable to unimaginable climate disasters?

2024 will be the hottest year on record.

The consequences of a rapidly warming planet are all around us: from the hundreds of people killed by Hurricanes Helene and Milton in the United States, to the millions of children at risk of starvation in southern Africa from the worst drought in decades… to the torrential rain stranded students in schools, and displaced nearly 100,000 in Colombia.

Vulnerable communities do not just need ambition – they need action.

That’s why President Biden and Vice President Harris have marshalled unprecedented climate resources over the past four years.

Because of historic private sector investments made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act, the United States economy will continue down the path of decarbonization, reducing emissions for years to come.

And we are on track to meet President Biden’s ambitious international public finance commitment of $11 billion per year by the end of 2024.

To accelerate our progress here at COP29, we need to first conclude key negotiated outcomes.

This includes building on last year’s Global Stocktake… concluding work on Article 6… and adopting a robust NCQG that addresses climate insecurity while building strong, sustainable economies.

It should be multi-layered with an ambitious, realistically achievable support layer involving new contributors… underpinned by a set of qualitative elements that evolve the international financial architecture, enhance access to finance for developing countries, and improve debt sustainability.

Second, countries – particularly major economies – need to keep their Dubai commitment and submit 2035 NDCs that are economy-wide, 1.5 aligned, and include all greenhouse gases.

Third, we encourage countries to submit the first Biennial Transparency Reports by December 31st. The United States will meet that commitment.

And fourth, promote the “action agenda” of key initiatives outside of the Paris Agreement. 

Colleagues, we have a clear choice: between a safer, cleaner, fairer future, and a dirtier, more dangerous, and more expensive one. 

We know what to do. Let’s get to work. Let’s get it done. Thank you.

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The post Remarks as Delivered by Senior Advisor John Podesta at COP29 appeared first on The White House.

Colleagues, on behalf of President Biden: the United States is here at COP29 to help produce successful outcomes that keep 1.5 C alive.

We face an urgent question: do we secure sustainable prosperity for our countries, or do we condemn our most vulnerable to unimaginable climate disasters?

2024 will be the hottest year on record.

The consequences of a rapidly warming planet are all around us: from the hundreds of people killed by Hurricanes Helene and Milton in the United States, to the millions of children at risk of starvation in southern Africa from the worst drought in decades… to the torrential rain stranded students in schools, and displaced nearly 100,000 in Colombia.

Vulnerable communities do not just need ambition – they need action.

That’s why President Biden and Vice President Harris have marshalled unprecedented climate resources over the past four years.

Because of historic private sector investments made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act, the United States economy will continue down the path of decarbonization, reducing emissions for years to come.

And we are on track to meet President Biden’s ambitious international public finance commitment of $11 billion per year by the end of 2024.

To accelerate our progress here at COP29, we need to first conclude key negotiated outcomes.

This includes building on last year’s Global Stocktake… concluding work on Article 6… and adopting a robust NCQG that addresses climate insecurity while building strong, sustainable economies.

It should be multi-layered with an ambitious, realistically achievable support layer involving new contributors… underpinned by a set of qualitative elements that evolve the international financial architecture, enhance access to finance for developing countries, and improve debt sustainability.

Second, countries – particularly major economies – need to keep their Dubai commitment and submit 2035 NDCs that are economy-wide, 1.5 aligned, and include all greenhouse gases.

Third, we encourage countries to submit the first Biennial Transparency Reports by December 31st. The United States will meet that commitment.

And fourth, promote the “action agenda” of key initiatives outside of the Paris Agreement. 

Colleagues, we have a clear choice: between a safer, cleaner, fairer future, and a dirtier, more dangerous, and more expensive one. 

We know what to do. Let’s get to work. Let’s get it done. Thank you.

###

The post Remarks as Delivered by Senior Advisor John Podesta at COP29 appeared first on The White House.

Today, President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will welcome approximately 200 education and workforce leaders to the White House for the Biden-Harris Administration’s “Classroom to Career” Summit. The Administration’s Investing in America agenda is creating millions of good-paying jobs—many of which do not require a four-year college degree—and its investments will continue to drive job creation for years to come. The Summit will highlight record progress to expand career pathways to these good-paying jobs in infrastructure, clean energy, advanced manufacturing, and more.

The Summit will bring together Cabinet members and other senior Administration officials, state and local elected officials, community college presidents, K-12 leaders, unions, workforce development leaders from the nine White House Workforce Hubs and other communities across the country, business leaders, representatives of philanthropic organizations, and students.

At the Summit, President Biden will announce that more than $80 billion from his American Rescue Plan has now been committed to strengthening and expanding the American workforce, helping to meet the promise of these historic investments—from supporting high-quality free community college programs in high-demand fields, to expanding Registered Apprenticeships, to attracting and retaining a skilled, diverse workforce in critical industries. These efforts are helping students and workers—including those without four-year degrees—access good-paying opportunities spurred by the Investing in America agenda.

The Summit will take place nearly fifteen years after Dr. Biden, a lifelong educator and community-college champion, led the first-ever White House Summit on Community Colleges as Second Lady, where she set the path forward for community colleges to be a critical part of America’s economic vision for the future.

Senior Administration officials, federal agencies, and key external stakeholders will announce new actions and recent achievements during the Summit, including:

Expanding quality career and technical education (CTE) and community college training

During today’s Summit, Administration officials will highlight efforts to expand access to evidence-based, high-quality CTE programs and affordable community college pathways:

• First Lady Jill Biden will announce that 34 states and Washington, DC now have a free community college program. In total, over 400 colleges, cities, and states now offer tuition-free college and job training—up from about 50 programs when she, President Obama, and then-Vice President Biden launched the America’s College Promise Initiative in 2015. Several of the newest free community college plans were launched with support from American Rescue Plan funds. As First Lady, Dr. Biden has championed community colleges and workforce training programs, traveling the country to highlight evidence-based models and promising practices that connect high school and community college students to good-paying jobs.

• The Department of Education (ED) will publish new analysis of ED data on postsecondary programs that provide pathways to jobs created or fueled by the Investing in America agenda. The Department will also release a mapping tool to help the public find those programs and a public-use data set that will allow researchers and policymakers to further explore these connections. This analysis comes on the heels of a years-long effort to better connect both high schools and postsecondary programs to career pathways through the Unlocking Career Success Initiative, which invested $31 million in building model career-connected programs in high schools that will provide up to 120,000 students with pathways to high-wage, high-demand careers. 

• The Department of Commerce (DOC) will announce that over one-quarter of states and territories have proactively allocated more than $300 million in Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) funding towards workforce development initiatives. These states are building the skilled construction workforce needed to connect every American to reliable and affordable high-speed Internet by investing in community college job training programs, Registered Apprenticeships, and sectoral partnership training models.

• DOC will also announce that more than 80 community colleges across 22 states have created or expanded programming to train semiconductor workers for advanced manufacturing jobs spurred by the President’s CHIPS and Science Act. In addition, ten states have announced new dedicated state funding for workforce development investments to support CHIPS facilities.

Additional new announcements:

• Scholarship America, ECMC Foundation, GoFundMe.org, Trellis Foundation, Ascendium Education Group, and the Crimsonbridge Foundation will launch a new national emergency aid program to assist students, including students who are single mothers, in 2025. Nearly 10 percent of undergraduates—1.7 million students—are single mothers, and while single moms earn higher GPAs than their non-parenting peers, they experience greater rates of financial distress. Research shows emergency grants are effective at keeping financially distressed students on track to complete their degrees.

• Invest in Our Future will support expansion of YouthBuild’s new solar panel training and certification pilot program to 16 new locations in 2025. YouthBuild’s solar program, which launched its first three locations in October, partners with industry to prepare youth ages 16 to 24 for good clean energy jobs spurred by the Inflation Reduction Act.

• The Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT), with support from Ascendium, will launch an initiative to help community colleges design processes to build capacity to create new Registered Apprenticeship programs in occupational sectors that have not traditionally used apprenticeship as a training pathway. ACCT will engage 20 community colleges from across the country in designing and implementing new Registered Apprenticeship programs, demonstrating the potential for community colleges to serve as apprenticeship intermediaries in addition to instructional providers.

Growing Registered Apprenticeships and other high-quality workforce programs

The Administration has made record high-quality workforce development models, including Registered Apprenticeships—the gold-standard earn-and-learn pathway—as well as industry-led sector partnerships that bring together employers, unions, community colleges, and other partners to develop high-quality training programs.

• The Department of Labor (DOL) will announce that more than one million Americans have started a Registered Apprenticeship since President Biden took office—and this month, the number of women in apprenticeships will surpass 100,000for the first time ever.

• DOL will also announce that 46 states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico now have K-12 teacher Registered Apprenticeship programs. Not a single state had a teacher Registered Apprenticeship program when the Administration took office.

• DOC will announce that 12,000 participants have been successfully trained and placed into good jobs in the first wave of the Good Jobs Challenge, a flagship sector strategies program funded by President Biden’s American Rescue Plan.

• The Department of Transportation (DOT) will announce that it has invested $93 million to support the rail workforce since the start of the Administration through the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) Program. These funds, which include $54 million awarded in October, invest in the hardworking Americans who will help maintain and operate the nation’s rail networks into the future by creating new apprenticeship programs, expanding training opportunities, establishing partnerships with universities, and advancing innovative research.

• DOT will also announce it has awarded a total of $137 million in workforce funding to transit agencies in over 100 communities since the Administration took office through the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Low or No Emission grant program. This program gives transit agencies the option to set aside up to 5 percent of grant funds to train workers on new electric vehicle fleets.

• DOT will also publish new case studies on three states—California, Maryland, and Oregon—that are developing skilled, diverse infrastructure workforces by investing their flexible federal highway funds. Michigan and Pennsylvania have also announced workforce development initiatives that will lead to significant workforce investments from their state departments of transportation. This comes six months after the Administration called on states to invest at least 0.5 percent of eligible highway formula funds in high-quality workforce development approaches such as Registered Apprenticeship, pre-apprenticeship, and supportive services like child care and transportation for workers.

• DOT will highlight how hundreds of projects are now using local (geographic) and economic hiring preferences—an order of magnitude more than a decade ago. Local and economic hiring preferences are an important tool to expand hiring of underrepresented populations into good construction jobs, by establishing hiring goals for workers from disadvantaged circumstances or distressed neighborhoods. President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) made local and economic hiring preferences newly allowable, and DOT has strongly encouraged these preferences through its discretionary grant process, technical assistance, and place-based initiatives. Prior to BIL, only 16 pilot projects had preferences, all of them in highway and transit. Today, the Federal Highway Administration alone has approved 74 projects with project labor agreements and local hiring preferences—totaling nearly $4.6 billion—and preferences also cover rail, port, and airport projects.

Additional new announcements:

• The Families and Workers Fund (FWF) will announce it has surpassed $45 million in aligned funding commitments—matched by nearly $60 million from peer funders—to expand pathways to good jobs and build an inclusive, competitive workforce. These resources support initiatives like PowerCorpsPHL’s Climate Corps in Philadelphia, which collaborates with employers to offer paid workforce training and supportive services—such as transportation and mental health resources—to connect out-of-school and out-of-work young people with good-paying jobs in climate resilience and clean energy. The program transitions 92 percent of its graduates to quality career paths and substantially reduces recidivism among justice-involved young people. With support from FWF, PowerCorpsPHL will scale Climate Corps models to ten additional cities, serving an additional 1,300 young people.

• The State of Maryland will soon issue a call for applications under its new $24 million, six-year workforce investments using federal highway funds. The state will seek applications to provide high-quality workforce approaches to help fill good-paying transportation infrastructure jobs—including those created through the Baltimore Workforce Hub—such as Registered Apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs, integrated education and training, and supportive services such as child care and transportation assistance.

• The Washington Education Association (WEA) launched the first educator-led, union-run teacher Registered Apprenticeship program in the nation in 2022–and last month, WEA successfully transitioned its innovative teacher residency program to an apprenticeship model. The WEA Apprenticeship Residency in Teaching (WEA-ART), which addresses acute special education teacher shortages in the state, was developed with a grant from U.S. DOL. The 18-month program trains future teachers in ten school districts across Washington using a school-based, clinical preparation model, with resident apprentices earning at least $40,000 with benefits during their full-year co-teaching placement.  

• Safal Partners will announce commitments from its partners to provide cybersecurity Registered Apprenticeship opportunities for 2,000 Americans by the end of 2025. This follows the nearly 3,000 cybersecurity apprentices Safal has already served, 82 percent of whom came from underserved and underrepresented communities.

• OpenClassrooms will train up to 300 Registered Apprentices in cybersecurity and other technical career paths by 2026, in partnership with Wright Resource Group and other affiliates.

Spreading skills-based and skills-first hiring

Millions of Americans already possess the skills and capabilities to succeed at family-sustaining jobs but are held back because they lack a four-year college degree. Under the Biden-Harris Administration, the Federal government is leading the way in implementing skills-based practices, opening up pathways to good-paying jobs for more Americans by valuing their skills and abilities—regardless how they acquired those skills. At the Summit, Administration officials will urge employers in all sectors—public, private, and nonprofit—to remove unnecessary degree requirements, and to recognize the value of and provide high-quality alternative pathways such as registered apprenticeship and community college programs.

• The General Services Administration (GSA) will announce it intends to apply a skills-based hiring approach to an estimated $100 billion of federal agency task orders, by eliminating unnecessary degree and experience requirements for IT cybersecurity jobs at the Master Contract level in its planned Polaris and Alliant 3 Governmentwide Acquisition Contracts.

• The Department of Energy (DOE) will modify its multi-billion-dollar, enterprise-wide IT contract to remove degree requirements for cyber and IT jobs—impacting over 1,000 full-time-equivalent positions by December 2024.

• The Department of Defense (DOD) will apply a skill-based approach to more than 75 jobs created through its $40 million Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) contract, recognizing education, training, certifications, or years of experience—including experience gained through on-the-job training.

• DOL and DOC will publish The Skills-First Hiring Starter Kit—a plain-language, practical guide to help talent-hungry employers broaden candidate pools, boost retention, and improve worker engagement. The guide, which can be read in less than 15 minutes, is a user-friendly resource on hiring and promoting workers based on the skills they have instead of unnecessary education, degree, or other requirements. The guide was developed in consultation with a diverse group of 15 organizations, including the Business Roundtable, North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU), LinkedIn, AFL-CIO, Opportunity@Work, Indeed, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and SHRM Foundation.  

Additional new announcements:

• Leidos launched the Leidos Skills Taxonomy, which the company will apply to its full workforce of 48,000 employees as part of its comprehensive skills strategy. Leidos is also pledging to share best practices and outcomes from its skills strategy across the industry, and to hire 15,000 Veterans and military spouses by 2030.

• Palo Alto Networks has successfully mapped the capabilities and skills of over 8,500 employees and developed targeted learning programs to enhance these workers’ skills. Since March 2024, the company has used this skills-first approach to onboard 400 new hires. The company now commits to mapping capabilities and skills of an additional 4,000 employees by the end of 2025, and will expand upskilling opportunities to over 5,000 existing employees, focusing initially on sales and technical solutions roles.     

• Opportunity@Work will publish a new analysis of skills-first practices implemented by state governments in 2022 and 2023. The analysis finds that in 15 states that took action to remove unnecessary four-year degree requirements from job postings, 7% more middle- and high-wage state jobs—or 3,000 additional job postings—became open to workers without four-year degrees.

Leading the way in the White House Workforce Hubs

In May 2023, First Lady Jill Biden announced five White House Workforce Hubs in regions where the Administration’s Investing in America agenda is catalyzing historic public- and private-sector investments— Augusta, Baltimore, Columbus,  Pittsburgh, and Phoenix. Since then, President Biden designated four additional Workforce Hubs in Milwaukee, Upstate New York, Philadelphia, and the state of Michigan. In these Workforce Hubs, the Administration has partnered with state and local officials, employers, unions, community colleges, K-12 schools, and other stakeholders to ensure a diverse and skilled workforce can meet the demand for labor driven by these investments. The President, First Lady, and other senior Administration officials have traveled to the Workforce Hubs, convened Hub partners, and celebrated progress to expand career pathways and high-quality workforce approaches.

The White House Workforce Hubs have continued to lead the way on equitable workforce development between convenings, taking actions such as:

• In Columbus, anchor institution Columbus State Community College, and partners Intel and the Ohio Semiconductor Collaboration Network, completed the July 2023 commitment to develop a new certificate program for good semiconductor technician jobs. In January, the partners launched the Semiconductor Fundamentals Certificate program, a stackable credential that builds to an Electro-Mechanical Engineering Technology AAS degree, which has already enrolled 100 students.

• In Baltimore, Amtrak has put a memorandum of understanding in place with the Maryland Philanthropy Network and the Mayor’s Office of Employment Development to provide $5 million over four years for pre-apprenticeship training and supportive services for apprentices, helping Amtrak to meet its Hub commitment to ensure at least 50 percent of apprentice hours for Baltimore City residents in the ZIP codes immediately impacted by the Frederick Douglass Tunnel Project.

• In Augusta, Hub anchor institutions Augusta Technical College and Aiken Technical College deepened their partnerships with local building and construction trades unions to expand inclusive access to local trades apprenticeship programs. Augusta Technical College is newly partnering with the UA Local 150 Plumbers and Steamfitters to co-deliver Registered Apprenticeship, opening a co-branded training facility to deliver a plumbing and steamfitting apprenticeship program, and expanding the co-delivered Registered Apprenticeship program with the IBEW Local 1579 to serve an additional 200 apprentices. Aiken Technical College, in partnership with the local building and construction trades, launched a pre-apprenticeship program with preferential entry to apprenticeship programs across 17 trades, with the first cohort starting in October 2024.

• In Pittsburgh, Hub partners cut the ribbon on the first-in-the-nation EV Automotive Technician Registered Apprenticeship Program in October, fulfilling a commitment made at the Hub’s November 2023 convening with First Lady Jill Biden and expanding training opportunities for good clean energy jobs. The program is a true public-private partnership—hosted at a new EV lab at the Community College of Allegheny County, with support for technical instruction provided by a $3.75 million DOL Building Pathways to Infrastructure Jobs grant to anchor institution Partner4Work; employer contributions in the form of apprentices’ wages and benefits; and equipment purchased with support from the Hillman Family Foundations. The program will include outreach and recruitment of apprentices from underserved communities. The first cohort will begin in spring 2025.

• Today, the City of Philadelphia will announce three upcoming projects that will be covered by the new Geographic and Economic Hiring Preferences Pilot Program. These include two federally funded transportation projects identified by the Streets Department and one lead service line project from the Philadelphia Water Department, with collective costs greater than $87 million. Today’s announcement marks the first phase in Philadelphia-wide adoption of these hiring preferences—a commitment made at the Hub’s convening in July 2024—which will expand opportunities for Philadelphia residents by requiring that at least half apprentices on publicly funded projects come from disadvantaged ZIP codes in the City.

• Building on efforts launched in the Upstate New York Hub, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and Micron will scale their innovative partnership on AFT’s Advanced Technology Framework to the Michigan Hub and Minnesota, with support from a new $1.7 million grant from Natcast, established by the CHIPS and Science Act. AFT’s Framework provides industry-based career exploration to prepare high school students for technical careers in the semiconductor supply chain. The Framework is already being implemented across 10 school districts in New York.

• Today, in Milwaukee, BuildUS announced it will commit $250,000 to the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership (WRTP) | BIG STEP, given its proven track record in connecting people across Wisconsin, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, into family-sustaining, union jobs. BuildUS funding will support increased capacity for clean water infrastructure and lead service line coordination, outreach, program development, and operation, as well as support instruction and additional services for students.

• In Phoenix, TSMC successfully launched the state of Arizona’s first semiconductor technician Registered Apprenticeship program in April with support from the City of Phoenix and the Arizona State Apprenticeship Office, following its commitment to establish the program at the Hub’s January convening. TSMC anticipates expanding the program to hundreds of apprentices in 2025.

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The post Fact Sheet: White House Hosts “Classroom to Career” Summit, Celebrates Successful Efforts to Expand High-Quality Career Pathways and Workforce Development Programs in Every Community appeared first on The White House.

Today, President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will welcome approximately 200 education and workforce leaders to the White House for the Biden-Harris Administration’s “Classroom to Career” Summit. The Administration’s Investing in America agenda is creating millions of good-paying jobs—many of which do not require a four-year college degree—and its investments will continue to drive job creation for years to come. The Summit will highlight record progress to expand career pathways to these good-paying jobs in infrastructure, clean energy, advanced manufacturing, and more.

The Summit will bring together Cabinet members and other senior Administration officials, state and local elected officials, community college presidents, K-12 leaders, unions, workforce development leaders from the nine White House Workforce Hubs and other communities across the country, business leaders, representatives of philanthropic organizations, and students.

At the Summit, President Biden will announce that more than $80 billion from his American Rescue Plan has now been committed to strengthening and expanding the American workforce, helping to meet the promise of these historic investments—from supporting high-quality free community college programs in high-demand fields, to expanding Registered Apprenticeships, to attracting and retaining a skilled, diverse workforce in critical industries. These efforts are helping students and workers—including those without four-year degrees—access good-paying opportunities spurred by the Investing in America agenda.

The Summit will take place nearly fifteen years after Dr. Biden, a lifelong educator and community-college champion, led the first-ever White House Summit on Community Colleges as Second Lady, where she set the path forward for community colleges to be a critical part of America’s economic vision for the future.

Senior Administration officials, federal agencies, and key external stakeholders will announce new actions and recent achievements during the Summit, including:

Expanding quality career and technical education (CTE) and community college training

During today’s Summit, Administration officials will highlight efforts to expand access to evidence-based, high-quality CTE programs and affordable community college pathways:

• First Lady Jill Biden will announce that 34 states and Washington, DC now have a free community college program. In total, over 400 colleges, cities, and states now offer tuition-free college and job training—up from about 50 programs when she, President Obama, and then-Vice President Biden launched the America’s College Promise Initiative in 2015. Several of the newest free community college plans were launched with support from American Rescue Plan funds. As First Lady, Dr. Biden has championed community colleges and workforce training programs, traveling the country to highlight evidence-based models and promising practices that connect high school and community college students to good-paying jobs.

• The Department of Education (ED) will publish new analysis of ED data on postsecondary programs that provide pathways to jobs created or fueled by the Investing in America agenda. The Department will also release a mapping tool to help the public find those programs and a public-use data set that will allow researchers and policymakers to further explore these connections. This analysis comes on the heels of a years-long effort to better connect both high schools and postsecondary programs to career pathways through the Unlocking Career Success Initiative, which invested $31 million in building model career-connected programs in high schools that will provide up to 120,000 students with pathways to high-wage, high-demand careers. 

• The Department of Commerce (DOC) will announce that over one-quarter of states and territories have proactively allocated more than $300 million in Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) funding towards workforce development initiatives. These states are building the skilled construction workforce needed to connect every American to reliable and affordable high-speed Internet by investing in community college job training programs, Registered Apprenticeships, and sectoral partnership training models.

• DOC will also announce that more than 80 community colleges across 22 states have created or expanded programming to train semiconductor workers for advanced manufacturing jobs spurred by the President’s CHIPS and Science Act. In addition, ten states have announced new dedicated state funding for workforce development investments to support CHIPS facilities.

Additional new announcements:

• Scholarship America, ECMC Foundation, GoFundMe.org, Trellis Foundation, Ascendium Education Group, and the Crimsonbridge Foundation will launch a new national emergency aid program to assist students, including students who are single mothers, in 2025. Nearly 10 percent of undergraduates—1.7 million students—are single mothers, and while single moms earn higher GPAs than their non-parenting peers, they experience greater rates of financial distress. Research shows emergency grants are effective at keeping financially distressed students on track to complete their degrees.

• Invest in Our Future will support expansion of YouthBuild’s new solar panel training and certification pilot program to 16 new locations in 2025. YouthBuild’s solar program, which launched its first three locations in October, partners with industry to prepare youth ages 16 to 24 for good clean energy jobs spurred by the Inflation Reduction Act.

• The Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT), with support from Ascendium, will launch an initiative to help community colleges design processes to build capacity to create new Registered Apprenticeship programs in occupational sectors that have not traditionally used apprenticeship as a training pathway. ACCT will engage 20 community colleges from across the country in designing and implementing new Registered Apprenticeship programs, demonstrating the potential for community colleges to serve as apprenticeship intermediaries in addition to instructional providers.

Growing Registered Apprenticeships and other high-quality workforce programs

The Administration has made record high-quality workforce development models, including Registered Apprenticeships—the gold-standard earn-and-learn pathway—as well as industry-led sector partnerships that bring together employers, unions, community colleges, and other partners to develop high-quality training programs.

• The Department of Labor (DOL) will announce that more than one million Americans have started a Registered Apprenticeship since President Biden took office—and this month, the number of women in apprenticeships will surpass 100,000for the first time ever.

• DOL will also announce that 46 states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico now have K-12 teacher Registered Apprenticeship programs. Not a single state had a teacher Registered Apprenticeship program when the Administration took office.

• DOC will announce that 12,000 participants have been successfully trained and placed into good jobs in the first wave of the Good Jobs Challenge, a flagship sector strategies program funded by President Biden’s American Rescue Plan.

• The Department of Transportation (DOT) will announce that it has invested $93 million to support the rail workforce since the start of the Administration through the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) Program. These funds, which include $54 million awarded in October, invest in the hardworking Americans who will help maintain and operate the nation’s rail networks into the future by creating new apprenticeship programs, expanding training opportunities, establishing partnerships with universities, and advancing innovative research.

• DOT will also announce it has awarded a total of $137 million in workforce funding to transit agencies in over 100 communities since the Administration took office through the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Low or No Emission grant program. This program gives transit agencies the option to set aside up to 5 percent of grant funds to train workers on new electric vehicle fleets.

• DOT will also publish new case studies on three states—California, Maryland, and Oregon—that are developing skilled, diverse infrastructure workforces by investing their flexible federal highway funds. Michigan and Pennsylvania have also announced workforce development initiatives that will lead to significant workforce investments from their state departments of transportation. This comes six months after the Administration called on states to invest at least 0.5 percent of eligible highway formula funds in high-quality workforce development approaches such as Registered Apprenticeship, pre-apprenticeship, and supportive services like child care and transportation for workers.

• DOT will highlight how hundreds of projects are now using local (geographic) and economic hiring preferences—an order of magnitude more than a decade ago. Local and economic hiring preferences are an important tool to expand hiring of underrepresented populations into good construction jobs, by establishing hiring goals for workers from disadvantaged circumstances or distressed neighborhoods. President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) made local and economic hiring preferences newly allowable, and DOT has strongly encouraged these preferences through its discretionary grant process, technical assistance, and place-based initiatives. Prior to BIL, only 16 pilot projects had preferences, all of them in highway and transit. Today, the Federal Highway Administration alone has approved 74 projects with project labor agreements and local hiring preferences—totaling nearly $4.6 billion—and preferences also cover rail, port, and airport projects.

Additional new announcements:

• The Families and Workers Fund (FWF) will announce it has surpassed $45 million in aligned funding commitments—matched by nearly $60 million from peer funders—to expand pathways to good jobs and build an inclusive, competitive workforce. These resources support initiatives like PowerCorpsPHL’s Climate Corps in Philadelphia, which collaborates with employers to offer paid workforce training and supportive services—such as transportation and mental health resources—to connect out-of-school and out-of-work young people with good-paying jobs in climate resilience and clean energy. The program transitions 92 percent of its graduates to quality career paths and substantially reduces recidivism among justice-involved young people. With support from FWF, PowerCorpsPHL will scale Climate Corps models to ten additional cities, serving an additional 1,300 young people.

• The State of Maryland will soon issue a call for applications under its new $24 million, six-year workforce investments using federal highway funds. The state will seek applications to provide high-quality workforce approaches to help fill good-paying transportation infrastructure jobs—including those created through the Baltimore Workforce Hub—such as Registered Apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs, integrated education and training, and supportive services such as child care and transportation assistance.

• The Washington Education Association (WEA) launched the first educator-led, union-run teacher Registered Apprenticeship program in the nation in 2022–and last month, WEA successfully transitioned its innovative teacher residency program to an apprenticeship model. The WEA Apprenticeship Residency in Teaching (WEA-ART), which addresses acute special education teacher shortages in the state, was developed with a grant from U.S. DOL. The 18-month program trains future teachers in ten school districts across Washington using a school-based, clinical preparation model, with resident apprentices earning at least $40,000 with benefits during their full-year co-teaching placement.  

• Safal Partners will announce commitments from its partners to provide cybersecurity Registered Apprenticeship opportunities for 2,000 Americans by the end of 2025. This follows the nearly 3,000 cybersecurity apprentices Safal has already served, 82 percent of whom came from underserved and underrepresented communities.

• OpenClassrooms will train up to 300 Registered Apprentices in cybersecurity and other technical career paths by 2026, in partnership with Wright Resource Group and other affiliates.

Spreading skills-based and skills-first hiring

Millions of Americans already possess the skills and capabilities to succeed at family-sustaining jobs but are held back because they lack a four-year college degree. Under the Biden-Harris Administration, the Federal government is leading the way in implementing skills-based practices, opening up pathways to good-paying jobs for more Americans by valuing their skills and abilities—regardless how they acquired those skills. At the Summit, Administration officials will urge employers in all sectors—public, private, and nonprofit—to remove unnecessary degree requirements, and to recognize the value of and provide high-quality alternative pathways such as registered apprenticeship and community college programs.

• The General Services Administration (GSA) will announce it intends to apply a skills-based hiring approach to an estimated $100 billion of federal agency task orders, by eliminating unnecessary degree and experience requirements for IT cybersecurity jobs at the Master Contract level in its planned Polaris and Alliant 3 Governmentwide Acquisition Contracts.

• The Department of Energy (DOE) will modify its multi-billion-dollar, enterprise-wide IT contract to remove degree requirements for cyber and IT jobs—impacting over 1,000 full-time-equivalent positions by December 2024.

• The Department of Defense (DOD) will apply a skill-based approach to more than 75 jobs created through its $40 million Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) contract, recognizing education, training, certifications, or years of experience—including experience gained through on-the-job training.

• DOL and DOC will publish The Skills-First Hiring Starter Kit—a plain-language, practical guide to help talent-hungry employers broaden candidate pools, boost retention, and improve worker engagement. The guide, which can be read in less than 15 minutes, is a user-friendly resource on hiring and promoting workers based on the skills they have instead of unnecessary education, degree, or other requirements. The guide was developed in consultation with a diverse group of 15 organizations, including the Business Roundtable, North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU), LinkedIn, AFL-CIO, Opportunity@Work, Indeed, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and SHRM Foundation.  

Additional new announcements:

• Leidos launched the Leidos Skills Taxonomy, which the company will apply to its full workforce of 48,000 employees as part of its comprehensive skills strategy. Leidos is also pledging to share best practices and outcomes from its skills strategy across the industry, and to hire 15,000 Veterans and military spouses by 2030.

• Palo Alto Networks has successfully mapped the capabilities and skills of over 8,500 employees and developed targeted learning programs to enhance these workers’ skills. Since March 2024, the company has used this skills-first approach to onboard 400 new hires. The company now commits to mapping capabilities and skills of an additional 4,000 employees by the end of 2025, and will expand upskilling opportunities to over 5,000 existing employees, focusing initially on sales and technical solutions roles.     

• Opportunity@Work will publish a new analysis of skills-first practices implemented by state governments in 2022 and 2023. The analysis finds that in 15 states that took action to remove unnecessary four-year degree requirements from job postings, 7% more middle- and high-wage state jobs—or 3,000 additional job postings—became open to workers without four-year degrees.

Leading the way in the White House Workforce Hubs

In May 2023, First Lady Jill Biden announced five White House Workforce Hubs in regions where the Administration’s Investing in America agenda is catalyzing historic public- and private-sector investments— Augusta, Baltimore, Columbus,  Pittsburgh, and Phoenix. Since then, President Biden designated four additional Workforce Hubs in Milwaukee, Upstate New York, Philadelphia, and the state of Michigan. In these Workforce Hubs, the Administration has partnered with state and local officials, employers, unions, community colleges, K-12 schools, and other stakeholders to ensure a diverse and skilled workforce can meet the demand for labor driven by these investments. The President, First Lady, and other senior Administration officials have traveled to the Workforce Hubs, convened Hub partners, and celebrated progress to expand career pathways and high-quality workforce approaches.

The White House Workforce Hubs have continued to lead the way on equitable workforce development between convenings, taking actions such as:

• In Columbus, anchor institution Columbus State Community College, and partners Intel and the Ohio Semiconductor Collaboration Network, completed the July 2023 commitment to develop a new certificate program for good semiconductor technician jobs. In January, the partners launched the Semiconductor Fundamentals Certificate program, a stackable credential that builds to an Electro-Mechanical Engineering Technology AAS degree, which has already enrolled 100 students.

• In Baltimore, Amtrak has put a memorandum of understanding in place with the Maryland Philanthropy Network and the Mayor’s Office of Employment Development to provide $5 million over four years for pre-apprenticeship training and supportive services for apprentices, helping Amtrak to meet its Hub commitment to ensure at least 50 percent of apprentice hours for Baltimore City residents in the ZIP codes immediately impacted by the Frederick Douglass Tunnel Project.

• In Augusta, Hub anchor institutions Augusta Technical College and Aiken Technical College deepened their partnerships with local building and construction trades unions to expand inclusive access to local trades apprenticeship programs. Augusta Technical College is newly partnering with the UA Local 150 Plumbers and Steamfitters to co-deliver Registered Apprenticeship, opening a co-branded training facility to deliver a plumbing and steamfitting apprenticeship program, and expanding the co-delivered Registered Apprenticeship program with the IBEW Local 1579 to serve an additional 200 apprentices. Aiken Technical College, in partnership with the local building and construction trades, launched a pre-apprenticeship program with preferential entry to apprenticeship programs across 17 trades, with the first cohort starting in October 2024.

• In Pittsburgh, Hub partners cut the ribbon on the first-in-the-nation EV Automotive Technician Registered Apprenticeship Program in October, fulfilling a commitment made at the Hub’s November 2023 convening with First Lady Jill Biden and expanding training opportunities for good clean energy jobs. The program is a true public-private partnership—hosted at a new EV lab at the Community College of Allegheny County, with support for technical instruction provided by a $3.75 million DOL Building Pathways to Infrastructure Jobs grant to anchor institution Partner4Work; employer contributions in the form of apprentices’ wages and benefits; and equipment purchased with support from the Hillman Family Foundations. The program will include outreach and recruitment of apprentices from underserved communities. The first cohort will begin in spring 2025.

• Today, the City of Philadelphia will announce three upcoming projects that will be covered by the new Geographic and Economic Hiring Preferences Pilot Program. These include two federally funded transportation projects identified by the Streets Department and one lead service line project from the Philadelphia Water Department, with collective costs greater than $87 million. Today’s announcement marks the first phase in Philadelphia-wide adoption of these hiring preferences—a commitment made at the Hub’s convening in July 2024—which will expand opportunities for Philadelphia residents by requiring that at least half apprentices on publicly funded projects come from disadvantaged ZIP codes in the City.

• Building on efforts launched in the Upstate New York Hub, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and Micron will scale their innovative partnership on AFT’s Advanced Technology Framework to the Michigan Hub and Minnesota, with support from a new $1.7 million grant from Natcast, established by the CHIPS and Science Act. AFT’s Framework provides industry-based career exploration to prepare high school students for technical careers in the semiconductor supply chain. The Framework is already being implemented across 10 school districts in New York.

• Today, in Milwaukee, BuildUS announced it will commit $250,000 to the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership (WRTP) | BIG STEP, given its proven track record in connecting people across Wisconsin, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, into family-sustaining, union jobs. BuildUS funding will support increased capacity for clean water infrastructure and lead service line coordination, outreach, program development, and operation, as well as support instruction and additional services for students.

• In Phoenix, TSMC successfully launched the state of Arizona’s first semiconductor technician Registered Apprenticeship program in April with support from the City of Phoenix and the Arizona State Apprenticeship Office, following its commitment to establish the program at the Hub’s January convening. TSMC anticipates expanding the program to hundreds of apprentices in 2025.

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