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Trump Gaggles with Press Upon Departure from the White House, Oct. 13, 2026

October 13, 2026 · The White House · 0:10:05

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

President Donald Trump took questions from reporters as he departed the White House on October 13, 2026, in a gaggle carried in full on the White House channel. Asked whether the United States had stopped sharing intelligence with Ukraine, he said it had not: “We helped them, but we’re really helping them get to a final answer. We want the war ended.” Pressed on his confidence about the war’s end, he said he believed both President Putin and President Zelensky wanted it to end and did not know how to get there: “We’re going to get them there.”

The President also defended the Russia diesel arrangement against Senate Republican criticism, saying the diesel was “being released into the world” rather than to the United States. Asked whether the House or the Senate would be harder for Republicans to keep in the midterms, he said the two were equal, acknowledged the historical disadvantage of a sitting president’s party, and pointed to the enthusiasm he described on his rally tour.

Why it matters

Departure and arrival gaggles are where this President most often states his positions in his own words, outside a prepared text. Foreign policy is the portfolio of Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, whose records this site tracks against statements like these.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump Gaggles with Press Upon Departure from the White House, Oct. 13, 2026” (official upload, embedded above). All characterizations as stated by the President in the gaggle.