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Trump: 'There's probably never been anything like' Hurricane Harvey

The president plans to visit Texas on Tuesday.

By NOLAN D. MCCASKILL

President Donald Trump promised Monday that Texas would quickly get new federal funding for relief efforts after Hurricane Harvey battered the region, saying during a joint news conference with President Sauli Niinistö of Finland that "there's probably never been anything like" the storm.

Trump plans to visit Texas on Tuesday, and he said he hoped to return to the region the following weekend.

Here are highlights from the news conference:

• "There's probably never been anything like this," Trump said of the hurricane and its aftermath.

"I want to begin today by extending my thoughts and prayers for those affected by Hurricane Harvey and the catastrophe of flooding and all of the other difficulties that they're currently going through in Houston, in southeast Texas and now, it's looking like the state of Louisiana will also be affected," Trump said in opening remarks.

• Texas will get federal funding despite his threats of a shutdown, Trump insisted.

“I think that you’re gonna see very rapid action from Congress, certainly from the president, and you’re gonna get your funding,” Trump told reporters. “We expect to have requests on our desk fairly soon and we think that Congress will feel very much the way I feel in a very bipartisan way. That would be nice. But we think you’re going to have what you need and it’s going to go fast.”

• “One way or the other, Mexico will pay for the wall,” Trump said, after that country's government said Sunday it would not fund a border wall "under any circumstances."

Trump has threatened to shut down the government if he doesn't get the funding he wants.

“It may be through reimbursement, but one way or the other, Mexico will pay for the wall,” Trump continued. “We need the wall. It’s imperative. We may fund it through the United States, but ultimately Mexico will pay for the wall.”

• “I stand by my pardon of Sheriff Joe,” Trump said, “and I think the people of Arizona who really know him best would agree with me.”

The president claimed “a lot of people think” his late-Friday pardon of former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who had been convicted of criminal contempt after he was accused of targeting Latinos in law enforcement activities, “was the right thing to do.”

Despite the news falling as Harvey was about to make landfall in Texas, Trump said he thought his pardon would gain great ratings. He cast the controversial former law enforcement official as someone who was treated unfairly but had been great for Arizona with his tough stance on the border and illegal immigration.

Trump noted that President Bill Clinton pardoned Democratic donor Marc Rich, and he said Barack Obama "commuted the sentence and perhaps pardoned" Chelsea Manning. Obama commuted Manning's sentence for leaking government documents, cutting decades off her sentence.

• Trump wouldn’t single out Russia as a security threat.

“I consider many countries as a security threat, unfortunately,” the president said in response to a question about threats from Moscow. “I would consider many countries threats, but these are all threats that we’ll be able to handle if we have to. Hopefully we won’t have to handle them, but if we do we will handle them.”

• Trump appeared to be blinded by blonds. He urged Niinistö to take an additional question, nudging his foreign counterpart to “go ahead, pick.”

“Again?” Trump asked after Niinistö gestured toward a reporter. “You’re gonna give her the same one?”

“No,” Niinistö replied. “She is not the same lady. They are sitting side by side.”

Trump smiled, apparently realizing his mistake, to laughs in the room. “We have a lot of blond women in Finland,” the reporter noted before asking her question.