 core that the approach we've been taking has been getting results. It has obviously helped enable Israel to deal with what is, quite frankly, a genocidal threat to their existence by Hamas, by giving them some additional security assistance and, quite frankly, sharing with them our perspectives and advice and counsel on the conduct of military operations, to do so in a way that is as careful and deliberate as possible. I agree with the acknowledgment that these are their operations to plan and execute and speak to. At the same time, he has literally led, personally led, an incredible surge of humanitarian assistance, no other nation but the United States, and no other leader but Joe Biden has done as much. Now, I say that with full acknowledgment that we couldn't have done this without the assistance of partners, the mayor of Qatar, the prime minister, Netanyahu, and President C.C. of Egypt, King Abdullah of Jordan, a lot of help on the ground. I don't mean to discount that, but the President has been in a personal leadership role here in terms of getting humanitarian assistance in, and we have been able to get now much more over the last few days than we were even in the last couple of weeks, as well as the removal of individuals out of Gaza in our harmed way, 850 Americans, as well as hundreds of others from other countries, and of course all these hostages that we're now seeing. All of that is the result of a lot of personal leadership and involvement and engagement by President Biden. No question about that, even the prime minister's office said as recently as today, how critical President Biden's leadership has been. So as long as our approach is getting results, I think you can expect that the President's going to continue to follow that approach a couple more days. In his conversations with his counterparts, has the President received any reassurances that the two American women will be released today, and if not today, in the next two days? We hope that they will be released today, but we won't know until we see the list and we see who actually comes across. We want to get them released right away. When do you expect to see the list, and are there any hold-ups that you are so working through now? I'm not aware of any other additional hold-ups. Now that the one sticking point was whether two mothers could come out with their children. It looks like that has been resolved and they will be. I mean, my goodness, I mean, we're talking about letting little kids go without their moms. So that got resolved and that's a good thing. But again, we'll have to see, we won't really know who comes out, regardless of the list itself, until you actually get them on the other side on the receiving end and can identify them and know in fact that who you have is who you thought you would have. Do you have any information on the conditions of the other American hostages? No, I think Steve asked that question. I don't have any more information. And lastly, have negotiations started about the next phase of the release and that would include men? Well, right now we're focused on this extension here for 20 more hostages over the course of two days. And as I said in my opening statement, that extension applies only to women and children. So we're going to focus this a piece at a time. We're glad that we got to day four here. We won't breathe a sigh of relief until we know we've got today's hostages out and the team is already working. Our team, working with our partners in the region, already working on this two-day extension for 20 more. And as I said at the top, if we can extend that, we'll want to see it keep extending until we can get all the hostages out. We're seeing that Saudi Arabia is pressuring other OPEC plus members to reinstate those oil supply cuts. I'm wondering what your level of concern is and what you see as an impact on inflation in the U.S. Well, I think OPEC leaders talk to their plans. As far as I know, there's been no announcements here of any production cuts, so we'll let them speak to that. The President is going to keep focusing, as he has been, on a healthy global market that's properly balanced and that can continue to bring the price of gasoline down here in the United States. Thank you so much, John. CENTCOM is reporting that the carrier strike group Eisenhower has entered the uranium Gulf. What message is Washington trying to send to Tehran with this? Does this mean that they're not heating the call to not widen the conflict? The great thing about aircraft carriers is they can move around pretty easily, and we move them around as needed to demonstrate our commitment to our national security interest in the region. Look, the message of the Ike and the message of the Ford, the message of the additional aircraft squadrons that we sent in the region and the air and missile defense assets, all of that, is one to any actor in the region, be it a nation-state or otherwise, that this is not a time to try to take advantage of the conflict between our Israel and Hamas and escalate or deepen this conflict, make it worse, that's the message that we're sending. Is it targeted at Iran? Is targeted at any actor in the region, nation-state or otherwise, that might have considerations of widening this conflict? Thanks a lot, Kareem. John, in your statement at the top, you thanked the government of Qatar for this two-day pause that has been reached. What level of involvement was the U.S. government in securing this agreement? Very much so. I also mentioned in my opening statement that President Biden has been personally involved in getting the original deal in place and loosening up a snag that happened over the weekend, as well as working with partners Qatar and Israel specifically in the last 24 to 48 hours to get this extension announced. Congress comes back tomorrow. What's the priority level for securing those aid packages for both Israel and Ukraine? Very, very high, John. I mean, we desperately need the supplemental funding that the President asked for. And I would remind members of Congress as they come back to work that the figures in that supplemental request are well informed by our Ukrainian partners and our Israeli partners. We didn't just pull those figures out of thin air. It was very much in keeping with what our partners have told us they need for the coming months. And in both cases, the runway keeps getting shorter and shorter. You've seen that in the case of Ukraine, the drawdown packages that we've been providing are now at smaller increments in terms of how much money is being allocated. Because we just don't have the flexibility that we once had in terms of the amount of aid that can be given in each and every package. And we're in a critical time here. Winter months are upon us. They're upon the Ukrainian army particularly. And it's going to be tougher and tougher for them to conduct operations when the weather gets less conducive to do so. So we hope that when Congress comes back to work that they'll act with the same sense of alackery that we've been trying to act in terms of getting that supplemental through. Thank you. There was a report saying that the President said that he's sorry and he's disappointed in himself after meeting with the Muslim leaders. Do you think that the President could have done more to show sympathy towards Palestinians and civilians who are being seen as even-handed? I'm not going to discuss reports of private meetings. As I said earlier, the President understands there's strong feelings here on all sides. And as he's also said publicly, he doesn't want to see any more innocent civilians killed or wounded as a result of the fighting in Gaza. Not one. I mean the right number of civilian casualties is zero. We understand there have been many, many thousands of them. And we understand that with each and every one of those data points as a grieving family, the President understands that. And that's why we're going to continue to urge our Israeli counterparts as they go back, or they plan to go back to military operations, that they do it in the most discreet, deliberate, careful, cautious way possible. Also, the name of this war by the Israelis is to destroy Hamas and to kill its leaders. One of its leaders is Yahya Sunmar. He's the guy who signs on the hostage deal. Daniel is. Can you explain this complexity of on one hand Israel, wanted him dead, but at the same time, he's the one who decides how many hostages can be released. I mean, just help us to understand how complex is that. And is this a way to, is this like a strategy to keep from Hamas, to keep on releasing these hostages on the hope that he won't be targeted, who will be- You're asking me to kind of get into the psychology of Hamas, and I'm just not going to do that. What I can tell you is that the Israelis have a right and a responsibility to go after this threat posed by Hamas, and certainly as a part of doing that to go after their leadership, which they have done, and they have talked about the leadership that they have been able to take off the battlefield of Hamas. It's a strategy that we executed ourselves against ISIS and against Al Qaeda. And there's a logic to going after the leadership of a network. But in the meantime, there are Hamas political leaders that Qatar has connections with and communications with, that they are working with to secure the release of these hostages. Just to follow up on the worthwhile thought remark that the President made, I understand he also said he's standing by his approach, but was he saying that he's open to conditioning aid in the future as well, given that this is something he described in that way? I'm not going to get ahead of the President on this. I think he was very clear that yes, it's a worthwhile thought. He acknowledged that. But he also said in the same breath that the approach that we've been taking thus far has produced outcomes and results that have not only benefited the Israeli people in terms of their security, but the people of Gaza in terms of humanitarian assistance and the release of so many Americans now just to walk out through the Rafa crossing. So we're going to keep working on those approaches on results-based approaches. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks, Admiral. Sorry guys, we're running out of time. Okay. Chris, do you want to? Hi, I just want to see if you have any update on the supplemental funding conversation right now, how the leadership is going. Certainly don't have an update that is conversations obviously are happening on the Hill on the supplemental funding. I think you just heard that it's a priority for us, both the domestic and also the national security. We've made very clear that those are emergency asks that we have that we put in front of Congress. And so we're going to continue to make that very clear. I just don't have any updates for you at this time. And usually sort of the briefing, my time with the shooting of the three men in Vermont, the way I just started efforts to fight anti-semitism, the Longphobia, and we'll work and see if there's an opportunity given that we're continuing to see allegations of hate crimes pop up. No, it's a great question. And what we're seeing these hate crimes popping up is very concerning, obviously, to us. And this is something that the President, from very early of his administration, has taken on. When you think about groups who are under attack, and the President has said, it is unacceptable. It is unacceptable. People should be able to live their lives, as I said at the top. And so we've taken a number of actions this administration recently to address the alarming rise of reported anti-semitism and also Islamophobia. And we've talked about it over the past couple of weeks, but in recent months, DOJ published an updated threat response guide from the FBI aimed at telling people what steps to take if they receive a threat. The Department of Education released new resource aimed at addressing anti-semitism and Islamophobia on college campuses. And that is also for not just college campuses, but from P212 schools as well. We also established the first ever national strategy to counter Islamophobia. And earlier this year, we released the national strategy to counter anti-semitism. So this remains a top priority for this President, and we will do everything that we can so that Americans who feel safe in their communities and are not under attack. I'm just going to continue to go around. Go ahead. Is the White House open to attaching any border policy changes to a supplemental to get it passed? So I'm not going to negotiate from here. We've made very clear that our request, our supplemental request as it relates to national security, how important it is and why we think it's important. And we've laid that out, had conversations with members of Congress. Obviously, there was a HR2 that was introduced by the House, and we said we were, we did not agree with that. And Senate Republicans put forth a similar, I think, exactly the same proposal. We did not agree with that as it relates to negotiations that are currently happening in Senate with senators, right? Both Republicans and Democrats were just not going to negotiate from there. But it was a non-starter with the White House not even entertaining a border policy change. We're just not going to get into negotiating from the podium. On the climate summit, the President attended COP in 2021 and 2022. Why not attend this year? And if he's not attending, will he be participating in some other form, like attending virtually? So we don't have anything more to add to what the Admiral said at the podium as it relates to COP 28. What I will say is that we're going to have a robust representation, obviously. And we expect to have a productive, it'll be productive. So we'll have Special Envoy John Kerry, National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi, and Senior Advisor John Podesta, among others. We'll continue to build on the administration historic actions to tackle the climate crisis. President Biden, as you all know, you've heard us say this over and over again. We believe lead and has delivered the most ambitious climate agenda in history, both at home and obviously abroad. And we've been doing this since day one. So he secured the largest climate investment ever, putting the U.S. on path to cut climate pollution in half by 2030, which is something we believe that we are on track on doing, protecting more than 21 million acres of public lands and waters. And so he's going to continue to rally not just world leaders, but obviously rally here as well and make sure that we put climate, his climate ambition actions in the forefront. I just don't have any travel updates to announce at this time. At details of the Carter event tomorrow, will the President make the march? Will he see Jimmy Carter? So I do have a couple of things to say about that. As you know, the President and the First Lady and the Vice President and the Second Gentleman are going to be attending tomorrow, the event tomorrow. So as it relates to what the President's going to be doing, so certainly we're going to refer you to the Carter Center and the Carter family for specific details on the tribute service. They have planned for the former First Lady, Rosyn Carter. The President and the First Lady obviously will not be delivering remarks, but as to anybody else speaking, we would refer you to certainly to the Carter Center. Look and ask if the former President's going to be in attendance. Again, we refer you to the Carter Center, but the President and the First Lady certainly look forward to being there and to offering, you know, offering their condolences and participating in the event by attending. Kate, Karen. The President spoke yesterday with members of Abigail and Don's family. Can you tell us what that conversation was like for him? So look, you heard from my NSC colleague, the Admiral, about, and you heard from the President. You heard from the President yesterday speak to the importance of getting Abigail home. As you know, she celebrated her fourth birthday while she was in captivity and how important he believed it was to get her home, but also the American hostages who are being held and also American hostages who are being held more broadly globally. And you've seen the President's commitment to that since day one. I'm not going to get into private conversations from here. I think the family, her family has put out, have done interviews and there's been some, you know, pretty emotional quotes from the family. Just not going to get into that, but it is the President's priority. It is incredibly important for the President to get these Americans home. And what is the communication like right now between the White House or the administration and the families of the other Americans who are being held hostage? You know, the President had that conversation weeks ago. Has he had another follow-up to that conversation? Is it daily between senior officials? What's that like? I don't have a rhythm to call out of the amount of times that my colleagues at NSC or the State Department have had conversations with the families of the hostages. Obviously, we've, I think the last time Jake Sullivan was here, he spoke to it. Obviously, you heard the President. We've read out the President's calls. I just don't have anything to share at this time on any additional conversations. But again, it is the President's priority to get home the hostages, especially obviously the American hostages, which is why these pauses have been so important to get humanitarian aid in, obviously, to the people of Gaza, but also making sure that these hostages go back to their families and friends who love them dearly and are missing them. Okay. Great. The supply chain announcement today are rooted in all the issues that came up back in 2020, 2021, when a lot of it was rooted in shipping and holiday shopping and whatnot. I'm curious, does the President or First Lady do any online shopping? Have they had any personal experience with the frustrations that American consumers across the country felt in recent years? So, I agree. There's been some frustrations that obviously that the American consumers have felt recently, which is why we took those actions. You just listed them out. And they've had, they've been beneficial. I've talked about the containers where we were two years ago, where 100 containers were declined, and now we're at eight, right? We talked about, I talked about October 2021, as you just mentioned, to October 23, and how supply chain pressures, how they, how much they hurt the economy, which is why the President continues to make these announcements. This is what you're going to hear from the President at 2 o'clock. Look, I can't speak to the President or the First Lady's shopping strategy, how they go about it, but they understand what Americans are feeling. That's again, that's why we keep talking about lowering costs. That's why we're talking about something that's so important, like supply chain, as it affects the economy. But look, what we believe is the President's action, what he's taking, the actions that he's taking, has worked, has worked. And we see that with the holidays, the season, right? With families and how we've seen lower prices coming down. I'm not worried if you shut me down. Well, I could say this. It's too late for Commander. I could say this. You saw the President on Saturday, right? On Friday, small businesses. But how important it is, right? Stopping for making sure that small businesses are an important part of the economy. And you saw the President, the First Lady, and his family making sure that they were visiting small businesses on going into the holidays. And I suspect if we pulled the room, many of us would probably ask some version of the following question. Given the President's sagging poll numbers and the fact that he is currently placing behind any Republican opponent, has there been any talk in this White House about a change in strategy or staffing going forward in reflection of those numbers to continue to show them under water? No. And there was also a call out in recent weeks to staff, to senior officials, that if you want to go by the end of the year or go, otherwise you're here for the duration of the rest of the term. Is there, should we be anticipating any departures of either cabinet officials or other senior officials? Look, I can't speak to people's personal decisions. We don't have anything to announce at this time. And we're going to continue to do the work that the President set out to do. And we just talked about supply chains. We just talked about the economy. We've been talking about the President's leadership globally, especially in the Middle East. That's what we're here to do and focus on. That's what I'm here to do to focus on. I just can't speak to people's decisions. I had an in-depth conversation with Stevie Wonder last night who is, I love Stevie Wonder. Again, for the serious question, I had an in-depth conversation with Stevie Wonder last night who is asking, requesting a meeting with the President. He's very concerned about the Black agenda falling along the wayside and issues like laws of 50 years ago that are now being abolished or gutted to include issues like the Voting Rights Act, what happened in Arkansas last week, affirmative action, Supreme Court, as we've seen it, ban on books. And he's also even brought up issues of the Congo and the lack of information from the White House. He is the White House amenable to sitting down with Stevie Wonder, who has met with Presidents throughout history to include Ronald Reagan. He was one of the major impetus for getting the holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And also, he was one of those who worked with President Obama in his efforts to become President. Is this President amenable to meeting with Stevie Wonder who has these concerns? And you're right, April. What you just laid out in your question is incredibly important, and so we take that very, very seriously here. Can I just say a couple things about Stevie Wonder? He is indeed an icon who's made tremendous, tremendous contributions to the Civil Rights Movement and also voting rights. And as you just listed out, he was one of the main voices in getting Dr. Martin Luther King to end. We appreciate that. We appreciate his brilliance, and we certainly we appreciate what he's been able to do on behalf of the community. So I can't, as far as a meeting with the President, certainly I'm not aware of any meetings with Mr. Wonder or any scheduled meetings, and I don't have anything to announce, obviously, at this time. But I also want to say that on the President's first day in this administration, he has taken this very seriously as it relates to what we're seeing, as it relates to racial inequality. He called it one of the four major crises that we have to deal with as a country when he stepped into office. And one of the things that you know, and I know you've covered this very closely, he signed an executive order to initiate a whole of government approach to implementing his equity agenda. And a couple of things that he did, he worked to protect the right to vote through executive actions and continued to calls for legislation, took executive actions on police reform when Congressional Republicans would not sign the George Floyd Justice Policing Act. And so he's taken actions to make sure that we are protecting the right to vote. He spoke to the affirmative action, what we saw Skotis do, and he spoke to that and he said, and I'll quote, we should never allow the country to walk away from the dream upon which it was founded. The opportunity is for everyone, not just a few. And he stands by those words. But Steady Wonder is not alone in this thought. Obviously, yeah. Yeah, he's not alone in this thought. He's very upset and he's even looking at this issue reporting black males. I mean, he just wants to have a conversation with the president, amenable, as he is a leader, as he has met with other presidents on major issues of rights, humanitarian rights, as well as civil rights. And look, you're right. It's not just an issue that Mr. Mr. Stevie Wonder has, right? As you know, we've met with civil rights leaders multiple times, the president himself, the vice president as well, and have sat in rooms listening to them and listening to their concerns and also taking in their feedback. So we've taken this very seriously, very seriously. That's why we've taken the actions that we've had throughout the past almost three years in this administration. That's why we're going to continue to be vocal about the importance of making sure that we keep an adore of opportunity for communities. That's why when you think about his economy, what he's put forth on his agenda and policy, when you think about all the policies that he's put forth, there's always been equity at the center of that. So this is something he takes seriously. Again, I don't have anything to share about a meeting with Mr. Stevie Wonder, but obviously this is something that both the president, the vice president, also the first lady takes incredibly seriously. And you see that. You see that in the actions that we have taken, whether it's policy actions, whether it's speaking out and speaking up about what we're seeing from Republicans, extreme Republicans on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue and what they are trying to do in taking away voting rights or what we've seen from the Supreme Court Justice and taking away certainly affirmative action, which we think is incredibly important. And we're going to continue to speak to that. I agree. I think we're going to keep going next year. Thanks, Green. On lowering prices, you said earlier that the actions the president has taken have worked. So is it your sense that when people were home for Thanksgiving, catching up with their family members, they were saying to each other, can you believe how much more affordable things have gotten? So honestly, I wouldn't, I hear the question, but I want to make sure this is very clear. We take that very seriously. We take what families, families, the decisions that they make at their kitchen table, whether it's at, whether it's during Thanksgiving or whether it is every month as they're trying to make hard decisions about how they move forward with taking care of their family. We take that very seriously. It's not a joke to us. It is important to us. This is the president who talks about it in a very personal way. And he talks about what families have to go through, working families, middle class families. And that's why he's taking actions that he has. And so look, the fact is the data shows that the economy is improving. The data shows that households remain in a strong financial position. Household wealth is at a record high with lower income households seeing the largest gain since the pandemic. Those are indeed what we're seeing. But we don't take lightly. We actually do not take lightly what Americans and families continue to feel. That's why the president at two o'clock is going to talk about what the actions that he's taking to continue to lower costs. But why do you think it is that when you say the economy is improving and President Biden says the economy is improving that a majority of Americans outside of this building are not buying it? So here's the thing. When we walked into this administration the economy was on a tail spin. That is the fact. Because of the last administration, because of the Trump administration, because of how they dealt with dealt with COVID and the pandemic. Because they didn't have a comprehensive plan. The president came in, he passed the American Rescue Plan which was able to get the economy back on its feet which is able to open up small businesses were able to open up schools were able to open up and we understand what Americans have been feeling over the last two, three years. It's going to take some time. We get that. It's going to take some time. But it does not take away how we have seen the economy getting back on its feet. We actually had to fix the problem that we saw that the last administration left us. Almost three years in office. Inflation is up over 17% since President Biden came here. Inflation is moderating because of the actions that this president has taken. Because the prices are going up slower. They're still high. It's going down. The prices are going down. If you look at where, for example, for a perfect example, I mean, I just talked about last week how turkey prices, cost for turkeys is going down. The cost for eggs is going down because of the actions that were taken which I just talked about supply chain and how that affects the economy. And that's because of the president's action that he's taken. And if you think about gas prices, it's down by $1.70 since it's peak, since it's peak because of the actions that this president has taken. So we understand that people are still not feeling it. We get that. But does it mean that we're not going to continue to talk about it? Does it mean that the president at 2 o'clock is not going to talk about how he's lowering cost? And let's not forget what Republicans are doing on the other side of, again, Pennsylvania Avenue. They're trying to increase healthcare costs. They want to get rid of Medicare. They want to get rid of Social Security. That is something that we saw them try to do at the State of the Union. They do that over and over and over again. They want to make sure the millionaires and billionaires are actually getting the benefits, right? And so that's not our way. Our way is to build the middle class from the bottom up, middle out, and the president believes in that. He talks about it. You're going to hear him talk about it in about an hour. And that's going to be our focus. I think I get to take one more. Go ahead, Brian. Thanks a lot, Karim. Has the president personally been involved today in these negotiations over the beliefs of the hostages, this sticking point over having mothers released with their children? Has the president personally been involved? So as you heard from the admiral, the president certainly has been kept aware. He's put in a very much a personal focus on this, on the pause that we're seeing, the pause that obviously the first kind of deal of the pause is ending today. Now we're going to see another two days, as you heard from my colleague. And this is very personal for this president. He's been very much engaged. You've seen us read out conversations that he's had with leaders in the region whether it's Egypt, Jordan, and others, obviously including the prime minister of Israel. And so the president has been incredibly involved in this. He was certainly briefed by his national security advisor, Jake Sullivan this morning, as the admiral stated. And so look, we've always been very clear when it comes to American hostages being held wrongfully detained, we take that very seriously. We want to make sure folks are going home to their families. That is important to this president, families who are suffering, families who are wondering when their loved ones are coming home. And let's not forget getting that all-important humanitarian aid into Gaza for the people of Gaza who need that. So that is going to be, continue to be the focus of this president. All right, thanks everybody. Hopefully I'll see you on the road. Thanks very much.