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Trump's Remarks in Press Briefing; April 14, 2020
REMARKS
Remarks by President Trump in Press Briefing
HEALTHCARE
Issued on: April 14, 2020
Rose Garden
6:14 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Please. Very importantly, I’d like to begin by saying that we’ve just reached agreement — the Secretary of Treasury, Steve Mnuchin, with the major airlines, all of our great airlines — to participate in a Payroll Support Program. This agreement will fully support airline industry workers, preserve the vital role airlines play in our economy, and protect taxpayers. Our airlines are now in good shape, and they will get over a very tough period of time that was not caused by them.
The United States is continuing to make substantial progress in our war against the virus. We grieve at every precious life that has been lost to the invisible enemy, but through the darkness, we can see the rays of light. We see that tunnel. And at the end of that tunnel, we see light. We’re starting to see it.
More than ever before, we’ve held our rate, the numbers — everything we’ve done. We’ve been very, very strong on it and very powerful on it. You look at what’s happening in other countries — Spain, Italy, United Kingdom. We’re working with them. We’re trying to help them, especially with ventilators. They’ve been calling a lot. They need ventilators so badly.
Fifteen percent of counties within the United States have zero cases, and many counties within the United States have a very small number of cases. Large sections of our country are really looking at other sections and saying, “Wow, that looks bad.” But they don’t have the problem.
I salute the American people for following our guidelines on social distancing — even you people. It’s so different looking out there when I look at you. Their devotion, your devotion is saving lives.
Today I’m instructing my administration to halt funding of the World Health Organization while a review is conducted to assess the World Health Organization’s role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus. Everybody knows what’s going on there.
American taxpayers provide between $400 million and $500 million per year to the WHO. In contrast, China contributes roughly $40 million a year and even less. As the organization’s leading sponsor, the United States has a duty to insist on full accountability.
One of the most dangerous and costly decisions from the WHO was its disastrous decision to oppose travel restrictions from China and other nations. They were very much opposed to what we did. Fortunately, I was not convinced and suspended travel from China, saving untold numbers of lives. Thousands and thousands of people would have died.
Had other nations likewise suspended travel from China, countless more lives would have been saved. Instead, look at the rest of the world. Look at parts of Europe. Other nations and regions, who followed WHO guidelines and kept their borders open to China, accelerated the pandemic all around the world. Many countries said, “We’re going to listen to the WHO,” and they have problems the likes of which they cannot believe. Nobody can believe.
The decision of other major countries to keep travel open was one of the great tragedies and missed opportunities from the early days. The WHO’s attack on travel restrictions put political correctness above lifesaving measures. Travel bans work for the same reason that quarantines work. Pandemics depend on human-to-human transmission. Border control is fundamental to virus control.
Since its establishment in 1948, the American people have generously supported the World Health Organization to provide better health outcomes for the world and, most importantly, to help prevent global health crises. With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have deep concerns whether America’s generosity has been put to the best use possible.
The reality is that the WHO failed to adequately obtain that and share information in a timely and transparent fashion.
The world depends on the WHO to work with countries to ensure that accurate information about international health threats is shared in a timely manner, and if it’s not, to independently to tell the world the truth about what is happening.
The WHO failed in this basic duty and must be held accountable. It’s time, after all of these decades. The WHO failed to investigate credible reports from sources in Wuhan that conflicted directly with the Chinese government’s official accounts. There was credible information to suspect human-to-human transmission in December 2019, which should have spurred the WHO to investigate, and investigate immediately.
Through the middle of January, it parroted and publicly endorsed the idea that there was not human-to-human transmission happening despite reports and clear evidence to the contrary. The delays the WHO experienced in declaring a public health emergency caused valuable time, tremendous amounts of time. More time was lost in the delay it took to get a team of international experts in to examine the outbreak, which we wanted to do, which they should have done. The inability of the WHO to obtain virus samples, to this date, has deprived the scientific community of essential data.
New data that emerges across the world on a daily basis points to the unreliability of the initial reports, and the world received all sorts of false information about transmission and mortality.
The silence of the WHO on the disappearance of scientific researchers and doctors and on new restrictions on the sharing of research into the origins of COVID-19 in the country of origin is deeply concerning, especially when we put up, by far, the largest amount of money. Not even close.
Had the WHO done its job to get medical experts into China to objectively assess the situation on the ground and to call out China’s lack of transparency, the outbreak could have been contained at its source, with very little death — very little death — and certainly very little death by comparison. This would have saved thousands of lives and avoided worldwide economic damage.
Instead, the WHO willingly took China’s assurances to face value, and they took it just at face value and defended the actions of the Chinese government, even praising China for its so-called transparency. I don’t think so. The WHO pushed China’s misinformation about the virus, saying it was not communicable and there was no need for travel bans. They told us, when we put on our travel ban — a very strong travel ban — there was no need to do it. “Don’t do it.” They actually fought us.
The WHO’s reliance on China’s disclosures likely caused a 20-fold increase in cases worldwide, and it may be much more than that.
The WHO has not addressed a single one of these concerns nor provided a serious explanation that acknowledges its own mistakes, of which there were many.
America and the world have chosen to rely on the WHO for accurate, timely, and independent information to make important public health recommendations and decisions. If we cannot trust that this is what we will receive from the WHO, our country will be forced to find other ways to work with other nations to achieve public health goals. We’ll have no choice but to do that.
Our countries are now experiencing — you look all over the world — tremendous death and economic devastation because those tasked with protecting us by being truthful and transparent failed to do so. It would have been so easy to be truthful. And so much death has been caused by their mistakes.
We will continue to engage with the WHO to see if it can make meaningful reforms. For the time being, we will redirect global health and directly work with others. All of the aid that we send will be discussed at very, very powerful lettel [sic] — letters and with very powerful and influential groups and smart groups — medically, politically, and every other way.
And we’ll be discussing it with other countries and global health partners: what do we do with all of that money that goes to WHO. And maybe WHO will reform, and maybe they won’t. But we’ll be able to see.
As you know, in other countries hit hard by the virus, hospitals have been tragically forced to ration medical care and the use of ventilators. But due to our early and aggressive action, the skill of our healthcare workers, and the resilience of our healthcare system, no hospital in America has been forced to deny any patient access to a ventilator — with all of the talk you’ve heard, where some states wanted 40,000 ventilators. I said, “That doesn’t work,” 40,000. And they ended up with seven or eight thousand, and they had no problem. Forty thousand ventilators for one state is ridiculous.
The scariest day of my life was about a month ago when, after a long day of meetings, my team told me that we were going to be needing 130,000 ventilators; that we were short hundreds of thousands of ventilators. This is the system we inherited. I had governors requesting unreasonable sums that the federal government just didn’t have.
And you look at the states. The states didn’t have — the states were not prepared. I knew that every person who needed a ventilator and didn’t get one would die. And that’s what we were told: They would die. I saw another country’s doctors having to make decisions on who got a ventilator and who didn’t. And I knew that this would be a defining challenge of the crisis. Those that didn’t get ventilators were said to be in a position only of one alternative — and that was death. Would we be able to prevent Americans from dying because we couldn’t get them ventilators and the ventilators that they needed and they needed immediately? I instructed my team to move Heaven and Earth to make sure that this didn’t happen.
We started to smartly ration and distribute the ventilators that we had and that others had. And I got daily updates on the supply we had from requests coming in and people wanting to have updates. We had a great group of people working on it.
I instructed my team to use the Defense Production Act. And the Defense Production Act was used very powerfully — more powerfully than anybody would know. In fact, so powerfully that, for the most part, we didn’t have to officially take it out — it was a hammer; it was a very powerful hammer — in order to manufacture as many ventilators as possible.
Last year, America manufactured, from a dead start, 30,000 ventilators. And this year, the number will be over 150,000 ventilators. It could be as high as 200,000 — far more than we’ll ever need. So we’ll be able to stockpile. We’ll be able to talk to states about stockpiling.
These are high-quality ventilators. We had a choice: We could do inexpensive, less productive ventilators or high-quality. We’ve done a high-quality ventilator.
So we should have anywhere from 150- to 200,000 ventilators. In addition to that, we have 10,000 ventilators right now in the federal stockpile ready to move should we need them — we might not — should we need them in New York or New Jersey or in Louisiana or in Illinois or any other state that may need them if we have a surge.
I’d like to ask Adam Boehler to come up and just say a few words. He’s done a fantastic job — a young man who worked 24 hours a day on handling this situation. And I’d just like to have — have Adam, wherever he may be, come up and say a few words.
Adam, please. Thank you very much.
{snip}
And, with that, if you have a few questions, we’ll take them. And if not, that would be okay too.
{snip}
Q Mr. President?
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, please.
Q Mr. President, you mentioned that you’re going to be speaking with the — all the governors tomorrow —
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
Q — make recommendations —
THE PRESIDENT: On probably Thursday.
Q On Thursday. What if they don’t listen to you or take your advice or obey you?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, listen —
Q Will you —
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
Q Will you consider taking away their federal funding?
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t want to say that. They’ll listen. They’ll be fine. I think we’re going to have a good relationship. They need the federal government not only for funding — and I’m not saying take it away — but they need it for advice. They’ll need, maybe, equipment that we have. We have a tremendous stockpile that we’re in the process of completing. We’re in a very good position.
Again, the cupboard was bare when I got here. Nobody ever thought a thing — in all fairness to previous administrations, nobody ever thought anything like this was going to happen, but it did happen.
No, the governors will be very, very respectful of the presidency. Again, this isn’t me; this is the presidency. The presidency has such a great importance, in terms of what we’re doing. And you can talk about Constitution, you can talk about federalism, you can talk about whatever you want, but the best way — I’m talking now from a managerial standpoint — is to let individual governors run individual states and come to us if they have difficulty and we will help them.
Yeah, John.
{snip}
Q Mr. President?
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead, please.
Q Thank you, Mr. President. You were just criticizing the WHO for praising China as transparent, but you were saying many of the same things about China just a couple of months ago. So, I mean, how do you square, your decision to revoke funding (inaudible)?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I did a trade deal with China, where China is supposed to be spending $250 billion in our country. We’re going to be watching very much to see. Now, it got a little bit waylaid by the virus.
But, look, I’d love to have a good relationship with China. But if you look — and we made a phenomenal deal. China has paid — because of me, China has paid us tens of billions of dollars over the course of a very short period of time. Billions of — some of that money has been spent to farmers, where they were targeted by China. We cannot let that happen. We can’t let that happen.
So we ended up signing a very good trade deal. Now, I want to see if China lives up to it. I know President Xi; I think he will live up to it. If he doesn’t live up to it, that will be okay too because we have very, very good alternatives.
Q I was talking about the (inaudible).
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead.
Q Yeah, thank you. Today: 600,000 cases, 25,000 deaths. I know you want to bring — blame the WHO, but I’ve spoken to hundreds of people across the country in the last few weeks who say they still can’t get tested and that they aren’t social distancing because they saw —
THE PRESIDENT: So the governors —
Q Wait — wait a minute. Let me finish.
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Q So they aren’t —
THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me. Excuse me. I know — I know your question. You ready?
Q Well, no, you don’t. No —
THE PRESIDENT: The governors — the governors are supposed to do testing. It’s up to the governors.
Go ahead please.
Q That’s not the question. Wait a minute, Mr. President. That’s not the question.
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead please.
Q Mr. President, if we could just — if we could just get back —
Q The question —
THE PRESIDENT: Quiet.
Q The question was —
THE PRESIDENT: Quiet.
Q The question, Mr. President —
THE PRESIDENT: Quiet.
Q The question is —
Q If we could just get back to May 1. Mr. President, how many —
Q — they say that they are not — that they are following your lead, that they are not social distancing.
THE PRESIDENT: The governors are doing the testing. It’s now not up — and it hasn’t been up — to the federal government.
Go ahead.
Q That’s not what I’m asking. The question is about social distancing, sir.
Q Mr. President, I have a quick follow on the WHO, but if May 1 —
Q The question is if —
THE PRESIDENT: I told them when they put this guy here, it’s nothing but trouble. He’s a showboat.
Q I’m just trying to ask you a question.
THE PRESIDENT: If you keep talking, I’ll leave —
Q I’m just trying to ask a question.
THE PRESIDENT: — and you can have it out with the rest of these people.
Q I’m just trying to ask a question. I’m just —
THE PRESIDENT: If you keep talking, I’m going to leave and you can have it out with them.
Q It’s a simple question.
THE PRESIDENT: Just a loudmouth.
Go ahead.
Q If you — if you could kind of clarify: Are you basically lifting your “Slow the Spread” before the —
THE PRESIDENT: No.
Q — May 1 deadline?
THE PRESIDENT: No.
Q And then —
THE PRESIDENT: I’m not at all. No.
Q And then — and then how many states —
THE PRESIDENT: The governors are going to be running their individual states. Some of them will say, “No, I can’t open now.” And some of them may last longer than we even would think. Others will say, “I can.”
You can go — I don’t want to mention states, but there are numerous states that are in great shape right now. They’re viewing the rest of the country like we don’t even believe this is happening. We have a lot of those states. They’re set to open, practically, now. I mean, they would be open now. We’re going to let them open sooner than the date. We’re going to pick a date. We’re going to get a date that’s good. But it’s going to be very, very soon — sooner than the end of the month.
But there are many states out there that are looking at this and they’re reviewing it and they’re saying, “We shouldn’t be even included in this.” You know, there are some that want to open up almost now.
Now, if we disagree with it, we’re not going to let them open. We’re not going to let them open. If some governor said — you know, has a lot of problems, a lot of cases, a lot of death, and they want to open early, we’re not going to let it happen. So we’re there to watch. We’re there to help. But we’re also there to be critics.
And on testing — very important — we’ve always wanted the states to do the testing. We’re now providing great testing, but the state has to provide the great testing. The state has to provide the ventilators, but they didn’t do that. So we ended up going into the ventilator business, essentially, and we made tens of thousands of ventilators and we solved a big problem for the states. But we want them to do the testing, and we are there to help.
Yeah, please.
Q I have two questions. Or I have a question on the governors —
THE PRESIDENT: One question. Just one.
Q Well, I have a question on the governors. But first, can I follow up Jordan’s —
THE PRESIDENT: One question. Go ahead.
Q Can I follow-up on Jordan’s question?
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead.
Q Do you want to walk back where you did praise China in January for being transparent about the coronavirus?
THE PRESIDENT: I’m always respectful of China.
Q But —
THE PRESIDENT: I’m respectful of other countries. Why wouldn’t I be respectful of China? In the meantime, China has paid us nothing in your last administration, nothing in any previous administration.
They paid us tens of billions of dollars because of what we’ve done. And the trade deal we have, they have to give us $250 billion in purchases. Let’s see if they do that. And they’re also paying us 25 percent on $250 billion in tariffs. So we’re taking in — wait a minute. We’re taking in billions of dollars for China — from China. They never paid us 10 cents. That’s a great thing.
Now, if they don’t produce or if we find out bad things, we’re not going to be happy. But right now — and — and we’re doing that. That’s what we’re doing.
Look, we have an investigation underway. We’re paying almost $500 million. We have an investigation underway on the World Health Organization. We will find out exactly what went on. And we may be satisfied that it can be remedied and we may be sata- — satisfied that it’s so bad that it can’t be remedied. And if it can’t, we’re going to go a different route.
Q But that’s not my question. You’re criticizing the WHO for praising China for being transparent, but you also praised China for being transparent in January.
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t talk about China’s transparency.
Q In January, there was a tweet.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you know, if I’m so good to China, how come I was the only person — the only leader of a country that closed our borders tightly against China?
Q I’m talking about how you said they were transparent.
THE PRESIDENT: And, by the way, when I closed our border, that was long ahead of what anybody — you can ask anybody that was in the room. Twenty-one people. I was the one person that wanted to do it. Deborah can tell you that better than anybody. I was the one person that wanted to do it. You know why? Because I don’t believe everything I hear, and I closed. And if we didn’t close our border early — very early, long before the kind of dates you’re talking about — we would have had thousands and probably hundreds of thousands more death.
Please.
Q I’m talking about how you said —
Q Mr. President —
THE PRESIDENT: Please. That’s enough. Thank you.
Q — they were transparent.
{snip}
So we’ll open it up in beautiful, little pieces as it comes along.
Please, go ahead. Behind you.
Q Yes. Just a quick question. You spoke about Governor Cuomo. Just wondering if you have any thoughts on some of his remarks from earlier today, where he basically said that were New York to be pressured to be open, it would be a const- — it would cause a constitutional crisis.
And he basically said that you declared yourself “King Trump.” So I’m wondering if you heard those thoughts and —
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, I mean, I’ve declared myself as king. You know, I heard he said that. But I didn’t — I didn’t see the remarks. But he understands how we helped him.
He needed help. We gave him 2,900 hospital beds; he didn’t use them. We gave him a ship; he didn’t use them. And I’m not saying — but I’m saying that’s good, because you know what? That means he didn’t need them. But we said it was too much, but we wanted to err — we said, “Err on the side of caution,” as I said. We said, “Look, we don’t think you need it, but if you do, we’re going to have them built.”
And the Army Corps of Engineers did a fantastic job. And the U.S. Navy did a fantastic job, when we moved a ship that was not meant for COVID and we had it redesigned for COVID. But they still didn’t have very many people going in.
No, we are — we’ll get along just fine. He understands. We’ll get along just fine.
Please.
{snip}
Yeah, in the back. Go ahead, please.
Q Mr. President, thank you very much. I have two questions. One is from a person who can’t —
THE PRESIDENT: One question.
Q But a person who can’t be here. And so I —
THE PRESIDENT: Who cares? If you can’t be here, that’s too bad, you know. Right?
{snip}
I want to thank you all very much. So a lot of positive things are happening. We’re going to have some very strong recommendations for the governors. We’re going to work with the governors. The governors are going to do a good job. And if they don’t do a good job, we’re going to come down on them very hard. We’ll have no other choice.
Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you.
END
7:20 P.M. EDT
Remarks by President Trump in Press Briefing
HEALTHCARE
Issued on: April 14, 2020
Rose Garden
6:14 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Please. Very importantly, I’d like to begin by saying that we’ve just reached agreement — the Secretary of Treasury, Steve Mnuchin, with the major airlines, all of our great airlines — to participate in a Payroll Support Program. This agreement will fully support airline industry workers, preserve the vital role airlines play in our economy, and protect taxpayers. Our airlines are now in good shape, and they will get over a very tough period of time that was not caused by them.
The United States is continuing to make substantial progress in our war against the virus. We grieve at every precious life that has been lost to the invisible enemy, but through the darkness, we can see the rays of light. We see that tunnel. And at the end of that tunnel, we see light. We’re starting to see it.
More than ever before, we’ve held our rate, the numbers — everything we’ve done. We’ve been very, very strong on it and very powerful on it. You look at what’s happening in other countries — Spain, Italy, United Kingdom. We’re working with them. We’re trying to help them, especially with ventilators. They’ve been calling a lot. They need ventilators so badly.
Fifteen percent of counties within the United States have zero cases, and many counties within the United States have a very small number of cases. Large sections of our country are really looking at other sections and saying, “Wow, that looks bad.” But they don’t have the problem.
I salute the American people for following our guidelines on social distancing — even you people. It’s so different looking out there when I look at you. Their devotion, your devotion is saving lives.
Today I’m instructing my administration to halt funding of the World Health Organization while a review is conducted to assess the World Health Organization’s role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus. Everybody knows what’s going on there.
American taxpayers provide between $400 million and $500 million per year to the WHO. In contrast, China contributes roughly $40 million a year and even less. As the organization’s leading sponsor, the United States has a duty to insist on full accountability.
One of the most dangerous and costly decisions from the WHO was its disastrous decision to oppose travel restrictions from China and other nations. They were very much opposed to what we did. Fortunately, I was not convinced and suspended travel from China, saving untold numbers of lives. Thousands and thousands of people would have died.
Had other nations likewise suspended travel from China, countless more lives would have been saved. Instead, look at the rest of the world. Look at parts of Europe. Other nations and regions, who followed WHO guidelines and kept their borders open to China, accelerated the pandemic all around the world. Many countries said, “We’re going to listen to the WHO,” and they have problems the likes of which they cannot believe. Nobody can believe.
The decision of other major countries to keep travel open was one of the great tragedies and missed opportunities from the early days. The WHO’s attack on travel restrictions put political correctness above lifesaving measures. Travel bans work for the same reason that quarantines work. Pandemics depend on human-to-human transmission. Border control is fundamental to virus control.
Since its establishment in 1948, the American people have generously supported the World Health Organization to provide better health outcomes for the world and, most importantly, to help prevent global health crises. With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have deep concerns whether America’s generosity has been put to the best use possible.
The reality is that the WHO failed to adequately obtain that and share information in a timely and transparent fashion.
The world depends on the WHO to work with countries to ensure that accurate information about international health threats is shared in a timely manner, and if it’s not, to independently to tell the world the truth about what is happening.
The WHO failed in this basic duty and must be held accountable. It’s time, after all of these decades. The WHO failed to investigate credible reports from sources in Wuhan that conflicted directly with the Chinese government’s official accounts. There was credible information to suspect human-to-human transmission in December 2019, which should have spurred the WHO to investigate, and investigate immediately.
Through the middle of January, it parroted and publicly endorsed the idea that there was not human-to-human transmission happening despite reports and clear evidence to the contrary. The delays the WHO experienced in declaring a public health emergency caused valuable time, tremendous amounts of time. More time was lost in the delay it took to get a team of international experts in to examine the outbreak, which we wanted to do, which they should have done. The inability of the WHO to obtain virus samples, to this date, has deprived the scientific community of essential data.
New data that emerges across the world on a daily basis points to the unreliability of the initial reports, and the world received all sorts of false information about transmission and mortality.
The silence of the WHO on the disappearance of scientific researchers and doctors and on new restrictions on the sharing of research into the origins of COVID-19 in the country of origin is deeply concerning, especially when we put up, by far, the largest amount of money. Not even close.
Had the WHO done its job to get medical experts into China to objectively assess the situation on the ground and to call out China’s lack of transparency, the outbreak could have been contained at its source, with very little death — very little death — and certainly very little death by comparison. This would have saved thousands of lives and avoided worldwide economic damage.
Instead, the WHO willingly took China’s assurances to face value, and they took it just at face value and defended the actions of the Chinese government, even praising China for its so-called transparency. I don’t think so. The WHO pushed China’s misinformation about the virus, saying it was not communicable and there was no need for travel bans. They told us, when we put on our travel ban — a very strong travel ban — there was no need to do it. “Don’t do it.” They actually fought us.
The WHO’s reliance on China’s disclosures likely caused a 20-fold increase in cases worldwide, and it may be much more than that.
The WHO has not addressed a single one of these concerns nor provided a serious explanation that acknowledges its own mistakes, of which there were many.
America and the world have chosen to rely on the WHO for accurate, timely, and independent information to make important public health recommendations and decisions. If we cannot trust that this is what we will receive from the WHO, our country will be forced to find other ways to work with other nations to achieve public health goals. We’ll have no choice but to do that.
Our countries are now experiencing — you look all over the world — tremendous death and economic devastation because those tasked with protecting us by being truthful and transparent failed to do so. It would have been so easy to be truthful. And so much death has been caused by their mistakes.
We will continue to engage with the WHO to see if it can make meaningful reforms. For the time being, we will redirect global health and directly work with others. All of the aid that we send will be discussed at very, very powerful lettel [sic] — letters and with very powerful and influential groups and smart groups — medically, politically, and every other way.
And we’ll be discussing it with other countries and global health partners: what do we do with all of that money that goes to WHO. And maybe WHO will reform, and maybe they won’t. But we’ll be able to see.
As you know, in other countries hit hard by the virus, hospitals have been tragically forced to ration medical care and the use of ventilators. But due to our early and aggressive action, the skill of our healthcare workers, and the resilience of our healthcare system, no hospital in America has been forced to deny any patient access to a ventilator — with all of the talk you’ve heard, where some states wanted 40,000 ventilators. I said, “That doesn’t work,” 40,000. And they ended up with seven or eight thousand, and they had no problem. Forty thousand ventilators for one state is ridiculous.
The scariest day of my life was about a month ago when, after a long day of meetings, my team told me that we were going to be needing 130,000 ventilators; that we were short hundreds of thousands of ventilators. This is the system we inherited. I had governors requesting unreasonable sums that the federal government just didn’t have.
And you look at the states. The states didn’t have — the states were not prepared. I knew that every person who needed a ventilator and didn’t get one would die. And that’s what we were told: They would die. I saw another country’s doctors having to make decisions on who got a ventilator and who didn’t. And I knew that this would be a defining challenge of the crisis. Those that didn’t get ventilators were said to be in a position only of one alternative — and that was death. Would we be able to prevent Americans from dying because we couldn’t get them ventilators and the ventilators that they needed and they needed immediately? I instructed my team to move Heaven and Earth to make sure that this didn’t happen.
We started to smartly ration and distribute the ventilators that we had and that others had. And I got daily updates on the supply we had from requests coming in and people wanting to have updates. We had a great group of people working on it.
I instructed my team to use the Defense Production Act. And the Defense Production Act was used very powerfully — more powerfully than anybody would know. In fact, so powerfully that, for the most part, we didn’t have to officially take it out — it was a hammer; it was a very powerful hammer — in order to manufacture as many ventilators as possible.
Last year, America manufactured, from a dead start, 30,000 ventilators. And this year, the number will be over 150,000 ventilators. It could be as high as 200,000 — far more than we’ll ever need. So we’ll be able to stockpile. We’ll be able to talk to states about stockpiling.
These are high-quality ventilators. We had a choice: We could do inexpensive, less productive ventilators or high-quality. We’ve done a high-quality ventilator.
So we should have anywhere from 150- to 200,000 ventilators. In addition to that, we have 10,000 ventilators right now in the federal stockpile ready to move should we need them — we might not — should we need them in New York or New Jersey or in Louisiana or in Illinois or any other state that may need them if we have a surge.
I’d like to ask Adam Boehler to come up and just say a few words. He’s done a fantastic job — a young man who worked 24 hours a day on handling this situation. And I’d just like to have — have Adam, wherever he may be, come up and say a few words.
Adam, please. Thank you very much.
{snip}
And, with that, if you have a few questions, we’ll take them. And if not, that would be okay too.
{snip}
Q Mr. President?
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, please.
Q Mr. President, you mentioned that you’re going to be speaking with the — all the governors tomorrow —
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
Q — make recommendations —
THE PRESIDENT: On probably Thursday.
Q On Thursday. What if they don’t listen to you or take your advice or obey you?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, listen —
Q Will you —
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
Q Will you consider taking away their federal funding?
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t want to say that. They’ll listen. They’ll be fine. I think we’re going to have a good relationship. They need the federal government not only for funding — and I’m not saying take it away — but they need it for advice. They’ll need, maybe, equipment that we have. We have a tremendous stockpile that we’re in the process of completing. We’re in a very good position.
Again, the cupboard was bare when I got here. Nobody ever thought a thing — in all fairness to previous administrations, nobody ever thought anything like this was going to happen, but it did happen.
No, the governors will be very, very respectful of the presidency. Again, this isn’t me; this is the presidency. The presidency has such a great importance, in terms of what we’re doing. And you can talk about Constitution, you can talk about federalism, you can talk about whatever you want, but the best way — I’m talking now from a managerial standpoint — is to let individual governors run individual states and come to us if they have difficulty and we will help them.
Yeah, John.
{snip}
Q Mr. President?
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead, please.
Q Thank you, Mr. President. You were just criticizing the WHO for praising China as transparent, but you were saying many of the same things about China just a couple of months ago. So, I mean, how do you square, your decision to revoke funding (inaudible)?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I did a trade deal with China, where China is supposed to be spending $250 billion in our country. We’re going to be watching very much to see. Now, it got a little bit waylaid by the virus.
But, look, I’d love to have a good relationship with China. But if you look — and we made a phenomenal deal. China has paid — because of me, China has paid us tens of billions of dollars over the course of a very short period of time. Billions of — some of that money has been spent to farmers, where they were targeted by China. We cannot let that happen. We can’t let that happen.
So we ended up signing a very good trade deal. Now, I want to see if China lives up to it. I know President Xi; I think he will live up to it. If he doesn’t live up to it, that will be okay too because we have very, very good alternatives.
Q I was talking about the (inaudible).
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead.
Q Yeah, thank you. Today: 600,000 cases, 25,000 deaths. I know you want to bring — blame the WHO, but I’ve spoken to hundreds of people across the country in the last few weeks who say they still can’t get tested and that they aren’t social distancing because they saw —
THE PRESIDENT: So the governors —
Q Wait — wait a minute. Let me finish.
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Q So they aren’t —
THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me. Excuse me. I know — I know your question. You ready?
Q Well, no, you don’t. No —
THE PRESIDENT: The governors — the governors are supposed to do testing. It’s up to the governors.
Go ahead please.
Q That’s not the question. Wait a minute, Mr. President. That’s not the question.
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead please.
Q Mr. President, if we could just — if we could just get back —
Q The question —
THE PRESIDENT: Quiet.
Q The question was —
THE PRESIDENT: Quiet.
Q The question, Mr. President —
THE PRESIDENT: Quiet.
Q The question is —
Q If we could just get back to May 1. Mr. President, how many —
Q — they say that they are not — that they are following your lead, that they are not social distancing.
THE PRESIDENT: The governors are doing the testing. It’s now not up — and it hasn’t been up — to the federal government.
Go ahead.
Q That’s not what I’m asking. The question is about social distancing, sir.
Q Mr. President, I have a quick follow on the WHO, but if May 1 —
Q The question is if —
THE PRESIDENT: I told them when they put this guy here, it’s nothing but trouble. He’s a showboat.
Q I’m just trying to ask you a question.
THE PRESIDENT: If you keep talking, I’ll leave —
Q I’m just trying to ask a question.
THE PRESIDENT: — and you can have it out with the rest of these people.
Q I’m just trying to ask a question. I’m just —
THE PRESIDENT: If you keep talking, I’m going to leave and you can have it out with them.
Q It’s a simple question.
THE PRESIDENT: Just a loudmouth.
Go ahead.
Q If you — if you could kind of clarify: Are you basically lifting your “Slow the Spread” before the —
THE PRESIDENT: No.
Q — May 1 deadline?
THE PRESIDENT: No.
Q And then —
THE PRESIDENT: I’m not at all. No.
Q And then — and then how many states —
THE PRESIDENT: The governors are going to be running their individual states. Some of them will say, “No, I can’t open now.” And some of them may last longer than we even would think. Others will say, “I can.”
You can go — I don’t want to mention states, but there are numerous states that are in great shape right now. They’re viewing the rest of the country like we don’t even believe this is happening. We have a lot of those states. They’re set to open, practically, now. I mean, they would be open now. We’re going to let them open sooner than the date. We’re going to pick a date. We’re going to get a date that’s good. But it’s going to be very, very soon — sooner than the end of the month.
But there are many states out there that are looking at this and they’re reviewing it and they’re saying, “We shouldn’t be even included in this.” You know, there are some that want to open up almost now.
Now, if we disagree with it, we’re not going to let them open. We’re not going to let them open. If some governor said — you know, has a lot of problems, a lot of cases, a lot of death, and they want to open early, we’re not going to let it happen. So we’re there to watch. We’re there to help. But we’re also there to be critics.
And on testing — very important — we’ve always wanted the states to do the testing. We’re now providing great testing, but the state has to provide the great testing. The state has to provide the ventilators, but they didn’t do that. So we ended up going into the ventilator business, essentially, and we made tens of thousands of ventilators and we solved a big problem for the states. But we want them to do the testing, and we are there to help.
Yeah, please.
Q I have two questions. Or I have a question on the governors —
THE PRESIDENT: One question. Just one.
Q Well, I have a question on the governors. But first, can I follow up Jordan’s —
THE PRESIDENT: One question. Go ahead.
Q Can I follow-up on Jordan’s question?
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead.
Q Do you want to walk back where you did praise China in January for being transparent about the coronavirus?
THE PRESIDENT: I’m always respectful of China.
Q But —
THE PRESIDENT: I’m respectful of other countries. Why wouldn’t I be respectful of China? In the meantime, China has paid us nothing in your last administration, nothing in any previous administration.
They paid us tens of billions of dollars because of what we’ve done. And the trade deal we have, they have to give us $250 billion in purchases. Let’s see if they do that. And they’re also paying us 25 percent on $250 billion in tariffs. So we’re taking in — wait a minute. We’re taking in billions of dollars for China — from China. They never paid us 10 cents. That’s a great thing.
Now, if they don’t produce or if we find out bad things, we’re not going to be happy. But right now — and — and we’re doing that. That’s what we’re doing.
Look, we have an investigation underway. We’re paying almost $500 million. We have an investigation underway on the World Health Organization. We will find out exactly what went on. And we may be satisfied that it can be remedied and we may be sata- — satisfied that it’s so bad that it can’t be remedied. And if it can’t, we’re going to go a different route.
Q But that’s not my question. You’re criticizing the WHO for praising China for being transparent, but you also praised China for being transparent in January.
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t talk about China’s transparency.
Q In January, there was a tweet.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you know, if I’m so good to China, how come I was the only person — the only leader of a country that closed our borders tightly against China?
Q I’m talking about how you said they were transparent.
THE PRESIDENT: And, by the way, when I closed our border, that was long ahead of what anybody — you can ask anybody that was in the room. Twenty-one people. I was the one person that wanted to do it. Deborah can tell you that better than anybody. I was the one person that wanted to do it. You know why? Because I don’t believe everything I hear, and I closed. And if we didn’t close our border early — very early, long before the kind of dates you’re talking about — we would have had thousands and probably hundreds of thousands more death.
Please.
Q I’m talking about how you said —
Q Mr. President —
THE PRESIDENT: Please. That’s enough. Thank you.
Q — they were transparent.
{snip}
So we’ll open it up in beautiful, little pieces as it comes along.
Please, go ahead. Behind you.
Q Yes. Just a quick question. You spoke about Governor Cuomo. Just wondering if you have any thoughts on some of his remarks from earlier today, where he basically said that were New York to be pressured to be open, it would be a const- — it would cause a constitutional crisis.
And he basically said that you declared yourself “King Trump.” So I’m wondering if you heard those thoughts and —
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, I mean, I’ve declared myself as king. You know, I heard he said that. But I didn’t — I didn’t see the remarks. But he understands how we helped him.
He needed help. We gave him 2,900 hospital beds; he didn’t use them. We gave him a ship; he didn’t use them. And I’m not saying — but I’m saying that’s good, because you know what? That means he didn’t need them. But we said it was too much, but we wanted to err — we said, “Err on the side of caution,” as I said. We said, “Look, we don’t think you need it, but if you do, we’re going to have them built.”
And the Army Corps of Engineers did a fantastic job. And the U.S. Navy did a fantastic job, when we moved a ship that was not meant for COVID and we had it redesigned for COVID. But they still didn’t have very many people going in.
No, we are — we’ll get along just fine. He understands. We’ll get along just fine.
Please.
{snip}
Yeah, in the back. Go ahead, please.
Q Mr. President, thank you very much. I have two questions. One is from a person who can’t —
THE PRESIDENT: One question.
Q But a person who can’t be here. And so I —
THE PRESIDENT: Who cares? If you can’t be here, that’s too bad, you know. Right?
{snip}
I want to thank you all very much. So a lot of positive things are happening. We’re going to have some very strong recommendations for the governors. We’re going to work with the governors. The governors are going to do a good job. And if they don’t do a good job, we’re going to come down on them very hard. We’ll have no other choice.
Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you.
END
7:20 P.M. EDT
