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Remarks by Trump, Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing, 04-20-2020
PRESS BRIEFINGS
Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing
HEALTHCARE
Issued on: April 20, 2020
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
5:39 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much everyone. Thank you. Following the release of our reopening guidelines, governors across the country are looking forward to phase one and announcing plans for an economic resurgence; we’re going to have a resurgence, too. At a time when millions of American workers and families are struggling with the financial consequences of the virus, it’s critical to continue the medical war while reopening the economy in a safe and responsible fashion.
{snip}
And based on the record-low price of oil that you’ve been seeing — it’s at a level that’s very interesting to a lot of people — we’re filling up our National Petroleum Reserves. Strategic — you know, the Strategic Reserves. And we’re looking to put as much as 75 million barrels into the reserves themselves. That would top it out. That would be first time in a long time it’s been topped out. We’d get it for the right price.
{snip}
The — some of the articles that just recently came about — if you remember, I put out a statement today. For a month, it was all “ventilator, ventilator, ventilator.” That’s all people could talk about was ventilators. And we did a great job with that. We built a lot of ventilators, to put it mildly. We have so many now that, at some point soon, we’re going to be helping Mexico and Italy and other countries. We’ll be sending them ventilators, which they desperately need. They were a position — they were not in a position to build them themselves.
But we have thousands being built. Every state has had — they have the ventilators. If they don’t, we have almost 10,000 in our Federal Reserve — our “stockpile,” as they call it. And we did a great job with the ventilators.
Unfortunately, the press doesn’t cover it — other than the fair press. But — so then you say, “Gee, I — they need ventilators.” We don’t need ventilators. And that’s — that’s under pressure we did that.
Nobody that needed a ventilator in this country didn’t get one. And a story that just came out: “How the Media Completely Blew the Trump Ventilator Story.” I’m sure you love to see that. That’s by Rich Lowry, a respected journalist and person. “How the Media Completely Blew the Trump Ventilator Story” — which, unfortunately, you did.
And here’s another one that just came out. Kyle Smith. “The Ventilator Shortage That Wasn’t.” “The Ventilator Shortage That Wasn’t” — because we got it fixed. And we’re also going to help the states, by the way, stockpile ventilators. So if a thing like this should happen again, they’ve got them.
{snip}
LIEUTENANT GENERAL SEMONITE: Well, thank you, Mr. President. I just want you to know that, on behalf of all of us in the Department of Defense, our thoughts and prayers go out to all of those patients and all those victims that have been affected by this terrible virus.
{snip}
THE PRESIDENT: You might say, while you’re here, we’re building — the general is in charge of the wall on the southern border, and we want to build 450 miles of wall, and it’s very much under construction. You might give them a little bit of an update: how are we doing with the wall.
LIEUTENANT GENERAL SEMONITE: So, sir, I think the most important thing — and you stressed this and Secretary Esper stressed this — there’s really several different priorities here. Our number-one priority in the Department of Defense and the Corps of Engineers is to protect the team, protect the force. No matter what we do, we’ve got to continue to take care of our civilians and our service members out there.
And so every single thing we’re doing, whether we’re building for the VA, or we’re building for Civil Works projects or for the Department of Defense, or building on the southwest border, we are going out of our way.
I talked to my commanders this morning; we’ve got over 4,000 contractors that are on the ground out there, and we’ve had no positives as of this morning, knock on wood. Same thing with my 400 employees. We’re testing them — not necessarily with the more stringent test, but with temperatures — to be able to make sure that everybody is safe and everybody goes out of their way to do things the right way.
Construction is going very, very smooth. What we’re seeing is our contractors are extremely focused. Now that we’ve — we’ve got a good clear path — both on the CBP program, as well as some of the DOD program — we, I think, are very well postured. It’s a very, very aggressive build, but we’re well postured to be able to meet your expectations, sir, of 450 by the end of December 2020.
THE PRESIDENT: And we’re over 160 miles.
LIEUTENANT GENERAL SEMONITE: A hundred and sixty-four as of today, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: A hundred and sixty-four miles. And we’ll have it done sometime pretty early next year. Very exciting.
LIEUTENANT GENERAL SEMONITE: Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: And you might just say one thing: the quality of that wall, in terms of its power for stopping people that shouldn’t be coming into our country.
LIEUTENANT GENERAL SEMONITE: So, same thing. If you have a standard design that you trust in and it works very well — I’ve got to pat on the back Commissioner Morgan; he was very adamant to continue to be able to make sure that it supports his agents.
And so we’ve got a design now that certainly does that. And then we’ve got a phenomenal contractor workforce that’s in there, my Corps of Engineer employees. And it’s going in well. We don’t see any significant problems.
And I think it’s also important to point out that there — we want to do this the right way, so we try to balance this with environmental considerations that are out there. We’re trying to do due diligence when it comes to anything to do with any of the citizens who are affected. We’re trying to make sure that we’re protecting all of the things that we need to protect and try to find that balance where we can both meet the administration’s directive, while at the same time making sure we’re doing this so that everybody gets a vote and everybody has a fair shake.
{snip}
THE PRESIDENT: Okay? So, General, you have a choice: You can stay and watch — watch these wonderful people ask us really nice questions — or you can go back to building beds.
LIEUTENANT GENERAL SEMONITE: Sir, I got a lot of building to do. I’m going to leave, if you don’t mind.
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead. I had a feeling you were going to say that.
LIEUTENANT GENERAL SEMONITE: Thank you, sir.
{snip}
Q Mr. President, I — on criminal justice reform and these SBA loans: I got an email earlier this morning from a fella in the northwest who owns a supply business. And he has a felony on his record — non-violent felony — in the past five years, which under SBA guidelines makes him ineligible for one of these PPP loans. So he has now had to let go 50 employees, many of whom are criminals trying to get back into society.
I don’t believe there’s anything in the CARES Act that would restrict somebody —
THE PRESIDENT: If you give me the name of the company and his name, I’ll have that checked out, John. I’ll do that.
Q Okay.
THE PRESIDENT: It’s a friend of yours?
Q No, not a friend of mine. No. Just somebody who contacted me out of the blue.
THE PRESIDENT: Why did he call you? He called you to say he’s a criminal and why did he get a loan? Or what — what’s —
Q Because he says he wanted to apply for an SBA loan and couldn’t, and wondered how that squared —
THE PRESIDENT: Okay. If you give me the —
Q — with your drive to criminal reform.
THE PRESIDENT: — name, I’ll look into it.
Q Okay.
THE PRESIDENT: I’d like to look into that, okay?
Q I have a question —
THE PRESIDENT: Kaitlan, go ahead.
Q — on reopening of the country. If these companies that open, and they have employees come back to work and they get sick, will these companies be liable?
THE PRESIDENT: Which companies are you talking about? Under what?
Q Any companies that open. Manufacturing — any kind of company that opens and employees go back to work —
THE PRESIDENT: So we have —
Q — and they get sick, will the company be liable?
THE PRESIDENT: I’ll give you an answer to that. I’ll give you a legal answer to that when we look it up. But we have tried to take liability away from these companies. We just don’t want that because we want the companies to open and to open strong.
But I’ll get you a legal opinion on that.
Q Who would be liable?
THE PRESIDENT: I’ll get you — well, that’s what I’m saying. I’ll get you a legal opinion on it.
Q You — you guys haven’t discussed that yet?
THE PRESIDENT: Nobody has discussed it, no. But we will now.
Q Have any business executives voiced concern to you about being liable, potentially?
THE PRESIDENT: Not one. Not one.
Q They didn’t say it —
THE PRESIDENT: Not at this point.
Q — on the call last week?
THE PRESIDENT: But we’re going to look, because they have talked about general liability. So I’ll get you a specific answer from the lawyers. Okay?
{snip}
Q So just a quick follow-up on that. If we have enough tests right now for everyone to go into phase one, why is the governor of Maryland having to get half a million tests from South Korea?
ADMIRAL GIROIR: I don’t know what the governor of Maryland is doing in South Korea, but there is excess capacity every day. If he wanted to send 30- or 40,000 tests to LabCorp and Quest, that — that could be done. That could be done tomorrow.
Q But he was saying they didn’t have enough that they needed to start to up their testing capacity and make it adequate. So they had to have these late-night meetings —
ADMIRAL GIROIR: I think — I think we’re seeing all across the country —
Q — with South Korea.
ADMIRAL GIROIR: — that in the states that have been hardest hit, their capacity — not only their capacity, their testing far — far exceeds South Korea. And they’ve been able to do that on a relatively straightforward basis. I don’t know what the governor of Maryland — we talked to him today. He didn’t bring that up today.
Q Haven’t you spoke to him about this?
ADMIRAL GIROIR: We were on the governors’ call today.
Q But you haven’t spoken to him, like, personally on this?
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead, Mike.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: We spoke to Governor Hogan today. I’ll follow up, because I heard there was an announcement today about that he had acquired some tests from overseas.
Maybe we could put the slide back up that showed the number of facilities, just in the state of Maryland.
And part of our process — and I don’t know when the governor placed the order from South Korea. Wouldn’t — I wouldn’t begrudge him or his health officials for ordering tests. But the capacity of all the different laboratories and the number of machines that are across Maryland was part of what we were communicating today, including federal facilities. NIH is in Maryland. There’s Department of Defense facilities.
And what we assured the governor then, and we assured all the governors, is that we’ll open up all of those facilities.
{snip}
THE PRESIDENT: And take a look at that map. The governor of Maryland could’ve called Mike Pence, could’ve saved a lot of money. Look at all of the — look at these different places. And that’s Maryland, right there. So, could’ve saved a lot of money, but that’s okay.
Q So you’re saying he didn’t need to go to South Korea for those testing kits?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I don’t think he needed to go to South Korea.
Q Have you guys not spoken to him about this?
THE PRESIDENT: I think he needed to get a little knowledge, would’ve been helpful.
Q Mr. President, on the SBA loans, do you think it’s right that major corporations, major institutions — like the Ritz restaurant chain, like Harvard University — apparently got a lot of money under the CARES Act, money that was supposed to be earmarked for small-business owners. Do you think that’s fair?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I know one thing: I didn’t get any. That’s for sure. I didn’t get any. We’ll look at individual things, and some people will have to return it if we think it’s inappropriate.
Q But should the criteria be changed so that that money goes to people who need it the most?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, it’s being done by great professionals. It’s being done by banks and, as you know, community banks all over the country. They’re — that’s what they do. They loan money, and they’re supposed to do it according to not only criteria, but according to what we think is right. But if somebody got something that we think is inappropriate, we’ll get it back. Okay? Good — good point.
{snip}
Q Me. Okay. Well, thank you so much, Mr. President. My question — I have two questions. The first one is on testing. You talked about the idea that first it was ventilators, and now it’s testing. You seem to maybe possibly be implying that talking about testing is a personal attack on you. Can you explain why you think testing — talking about testing is a personal attack, given that the access to testing has been an issue for a long time? There’s bipartisan outcries still today that there is not enough testing. Why do you think it’s a personal attack on you?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, it’s not bipartisan. It’s mostly partisan. But more importantly than mostly partisan, it’s incorrect. You have — you have the experts. Look at these maps. I mean, you have the maps with so many different locations.
In the case of, as an example, Governor Hogan. He didn’t really know. He really — it was very obvious to any of those listening on the call today — even though you weren’t supposed to be on it, I’m sure that some of you were or representatives were. He really didn’t know about the federal laboratories. Would you say that’s correct, Mike? He didn’t know.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: He didn’t know they were available.
THE PRESIDENT: He didn’t know. And Mike doesn’t like to get into this stuff. He’s less controversial than I am. But he didn’t know about it. And if he did know about it, he would’ve been happy.
No, we’ve done a really good job on testing. Now, with that being said, we have tests coming out perhaps over the next two weeks that will blow the whole industry away. Now, a lot of people love the Abbott test. So do I. You know, the Abbott test is great because it’s, boom, it’s — they touch, they put it in, and in five minutes you have — the problem is that doesn’t do massive numbers like the big machine. But the big machine takes a day, takes a day and a half, you know, with delivery and everything else.
{snip}
Q The second question I had was about your language and how you approached the coronavirus at the beginning. I interviewed someone who said that his family got sick. They went to a funeral in mid-March, and they said mainly because the President wasn’t taking it seriously. He said, “If the President had had a mask on, if he was saying we should stay home, then I would have stayed home. Instead I had family members…”
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I know. I understand.
Q I just want to — and he said his family members were sick because they were — they were listening to you. Do you feel like or are you concerned that downplaying the virus maybe —
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.
Q — got some people sick?
THE PRESIDENT: And a lot of people love Trump, right? A lot of people love me. You see them all the time, right? I guess I’m here for a reason, you know? To the best of my knowledge, I won. And I think we’re going to win again. I think we’re going to win in a landslide.
But just so you understand, you’re talking about March, right?
Q Yeah. But this is —
THE PRESIDENT: And yet — excuse me. Excuse me,
Q — this is an American that’s concerned.
THE PRESIDENT: I know. I understand. And yet, in January, a certain date — you know the date better than I do — we put on a ban of China, where China can’t come in. And before March, we put on a ban on Europe, where Europe can’t come in. So how could you say I wasn’t taking it seriously?
You know, I put on a ban on China before anybody in this country died. I put on a ban. And so you tell me. Nancy Pelosi was having — she wanted to have a street party in Chinatown in San Francisco at the end of February. That’s a month later. And then they tell me it’s only a political talking point. But you feed into it, because you’re too good a reporter to let that happen. Really, you are a good reporter. You’re too good a reporter to let that happen.
Remember this: So at the end of January, I put on a ban. People that were in that room will tell you — I think there were 21 people — I was the only one in the whole room that wanted to do it. Fortunately, I was the one that counted for that purpose. We put on a ban because I was reading bad things about China. World Health Organization should have told us, but I was reading it, with or without them. They should have known. All they had to do is read it. They didn’t have to even be there. But they tried to cover up for China — World Health covered up for China.
Q But you did hold — you held rallies in February and March.
THE PRESIDENT: But — no, no. Wait. But you can’t say this. Look, I put on a ban. In other words, I stopped China from coming to the United States. I stopped Europe from coming into the United States, long before the March date that you’re talking about. So people should say I acted very early. That was a very hard thing to do. Doing that was a very hard thing. I didn’t want to do that.
Q But you held rallies in February and March.
THE PRESIDENT: But I did it because I thought — and Dr. Fauci said that, by doing it, President Trump saved tens of thousands of lives. So I did take it very seriously.
Q You held rallies in February and in March. And there are some Americans saying —
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, I don’t know — I don’t know about rallies. I really don’t know about rallies.
Q You had about five rallies in February.
THE PRESIDENT: I know one thing: I haven’t left the White House in months, except for a brief moment to give a wonderful ship, the Comfort —
Q You held a rally in March.
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t know. Did I hold a rally? I’m sorry I hold a rally. Did I hold a rally? Let me tell you, in January, when I did this, you had virtually no cases and no deaths, and yet I put it on. So how could I not?
Why was Nancy Pelosi — right? — Nancy Pelosi is holding a street fair. She wants a street fair in San Francisco, in Chinatown, to prove — you know what the purpose of it was — to prove that there’s no problem. Many other politicians did the same thing. They wanted to prove —
Q So you (inaudible) —
THE PRESIDENT: While I was — no, of course not. No, no, no. I’ve been — people are amazed at how early I acted, and I did act early. With that being said, it’s very hard to say, “Let’s close down the greatest economy in the history of the world.” I had it closed down. I, and everybody else that works with me, and 300 and — close to 350 million people built the greatest economy in the history of the world: best employment numbers, best stock market numbers, best numbers in virtually every category. Even good manufacturing numbers. The previous administration said manufacturing was dead for our country. Even great manufacturing numbers.
And you know what? I did that, and somebody walked into my office and said, “Sir, you’re going to have to close down the economy. You’re going to have to close the country.” But you know what I say to you? We’re going to rebuild it. And we’re going to rebuild it better, and it’s going to go faster than people think. I built it once; I’ll built it a second time.
Please.
Q Mr. President, thank you. Chanel Rion with One America News.
THE PRESIDENT: Please. Go ahead.
Q We have — in going back to the topic of friendship and bipartisanship — Americans — with the exception of Pelosi, Schumer, and even Romney — Americans have seen an unprecedented chapter of bipartisanship and cooperation on the political landscape. On a personal note, what has been the most significant signal that your relationship with Democrats, below the leadership level, have changed for the good of America?
THE PRESIDENT: I think it’s a great question, because there is bipartisanship. Look, we’re getting the Paycheck Plan. It’s — already $350 billion was approved, essentially unanimously. And we have another 250, which I think you’re going to find out is going to be a higher number than that. Okay? I won’t say it now, because I don’t know if they’ve released it or not, but it’s going to end up being more than $250 billion. And this is going to small businesses and it’s going to workers.
And these are really bipartisan plans. It’s a great thing that’s happening. So I think the fact that we’re able to do all of this in a bipartisan way is great.
Now, the tax cuts that the Republicans did, we had no help from the Democrats, so you can’t say that’s bipartisan. But this whole thing, getting our country back — and, you know, Nancy Pelosi has been — she’s very nasty. She, you know, wasted a lot of time with the impeachment hoax. It was a total hoax. It went nowhere. But — and that was not good. And Schumer, I guess, did the same thing, but he sort of accepted it. He just did what he was supposed to do, and he didn’t do very well with it. But, you know, that was not appropriate. That was a bad thing for our country. But it was fine. I mean, I understand the game.
They have a little bit of a majority. So they say, “Let’s do something and let’s try and stir it up.” But they wasted a year. They wasted tremendous — we could’ve been doing things that would have been great for our country. They could have been looking into China. They should have been looking into China, as an example. A lot of people are blaming the Democrats for wasting all that time, because it was during that period of time, as you know, that it was fomenting.
But I think we’ve had a great spirit of bipartisanship, in a certain way. It’s not — I wouldn’t say we’re going to set records throughout the world, but things are happening that are very good. The country is coming together. And I’ll tell you what: The people are coming together. The people are really coming together. I think you’re going to find that our country is much more unified.
I do think that the press, the media, foments a lot of this — a lot of anger. I really believe it. It foments tremendous anger. For instance, I’ll be asked a tremendously hostile question from somebody, and then I’ll answer to — in a hostile way, which is appropriate; otherwise, you look foolish. Otherwise, it looks like just walk off the stage and bow your head. I can’t do that. You know, I just can’t do that.
But a lot of these questions that are asked from certain networks are so hostile, and there’s no reason for it. There’s no reason for it. We are in a war. This is a World War Two, this is a World War One — where, by the way, the war essentially ended because of a plague. That was one of the worst ever. They lost almost 100 million people. But we’re in a big war.
And I’ll say one thing about — because I think it’s important. The last person — I did it early, but I was the last person that wanted to close down one of the great economic — you can’t call it an experiment, but everything, I guess, in life is an experiment. So I say experiments. But one of the great economic stories in history. I’m the last person who wanted to do it.
But we did the right thing, because if we didn’t do it, you would have had a million people, a million and a half people, maybe 2 million people dead. Now, we’re going toward 50, I’m hearing, or 60,000 people. One is too many. I always say it: One is too many. But we’re going toward 50- or 60,000 people. That’s at the lower — as you know, the low number was supposed to be 100,000 people. We — we could end up at 50 to 60. Okay? It’s horrible. If we didn’t do what we did, we would have had, I think, a million people, maybe 2 million people, maybe more than that.
And you look — there’s one country in particular that decided, “Let’s wing it. Let’s just keep going.” They are being inundated with death. Now, if you take a look at some of the hospitals where — one of them I knew growing up in Queens, and I’m looking at the bodies laying in hallways, being brought into refrigerated trucks. The trucks — these massive trucks, bodies going in. Multiply that times 10. It’s not sustainable.
And many of the people that have this theory, “Oh, let’s — you know, maybe we could have just gone right through it,” I was — I was somebody that would have loved to have done that, but it wouldn’t have been sustainable. You can’t lose a million people. That’s more than — that’s almost double what we lost in the Civil War. I use that as a guide. Civil War: 600,000 people died. So it’s not sustainable. But it could have been much more than a million people.
I mean, if you took a number and cut it half, and half, and in half again, you’d end up at 500,000 people — okay? — if you want to make a very conservative guesstimate. Five hundred thousand people is not acceptable. Is that a correct sort of an analogy?
So, I mean, I see it all the time by friends of mine, by people that I have great respect for: “Well, we could have done this. We could have done…” And remember this: When we say 50 and they compare 50 to the 35 of the flu — because it averaged 35, 36,000 over a 10-year period. It’s a lot. Who would think that? But we’re not talking about with the flu. That’s just — it just goes. We’re not locking ourselves in our units. We’re not locking ourselves in our apartments and not moving and not touching anybody, and just saying — you know, the world. In this case, we are. And we’re still going to lose between 50 and 60.
But if we just kept it going on a normal basis, which is really the only standard that you can compare it to with the flu, because that was a normal basis. You get into an airplane, you travel to Florida, you go to Texas. You go wherever you’re going.
But, in this case, if we didn’t do anything, the number wouldn’t be 50 to 60,000. The number would be a million people dead. It would be a million-five, a million-two. Maybe 700,000. It would have been a number in — like that.
Because — because — and it’s so important because I see so much: “Oh, well, you know, they can…” You can’t compare it, because I’ll tell you what: The people of this country, what they’ve done — they’ve gone out of their way — what they — the way they’ve lived, it hasn’t — it’s not — it’s not great. It’s terrible. Maybe the first three days, and then all of a sudden — you see what’s going on; they want to get going. And I get that fully.
But I just say this: If we would have done that, we would have lost anywhere from a million to more than 2 million people. Now, with all of the death that we’ve seen — and 50- or 60,000 people, heading toward — right now it’s at 40. But 50- or 60,000 people; probably over 50, from what I see. But that’s with our guard up. If we took our guard down and just said, “Okay, we’re just going to keep this open,” we would have lost millions of people. Can you imagine?
Look how bad it looks now, when you look at the bodies. When you look at Hart Island in New York, where they have the mass grave, and all of the things that you see. Can you imagine if we had the guard down, if we didn’t do anything and we just said, “Let’s ride it out”? It would not have been sustainable in any way. It would have been an atrocity.
So we’ve done the right thing. We’ve really done the right thing. And the people that have worked so hard — and dangerously. I’ll tell you — again, I say it, but I watch those doctors and nurses and medical people running into those hospitals, and they don’t even have their gear on. Forget about gear, whether it’s great gear or not. And we’re bringing in the best gear in the world. But they’re running in with open everything, and they’re pushing. I mean, the job — they’re like warriors, the job they’re doing.
But if we didn’t do the moves that we made, you would have had a million, a million and a half, 2 million people dead. So multiply that times 50; you’re talking about — you would have had 10 to 20 to 25 times more people dead than all of the people that we’ve been watching. That’s not acceptable. The 50,000 is not acceptable. It’s so horrible. But can you imagine multiplying that out by 20 or more? It’s not acceptable.
So it’s a very good question. I appreciate it. We’ll see you tomorrow. We’ll see you tomorrow.
END 7:18 P.M. EDT
Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing
HEALTHCARE
Issued on: April 20, 2020
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
5:39 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much everyone. Thank you. Following the release of our reopening guidelines, governors across the country are looking forward to phase one and announcing plans for an economic resurgence; we’re going to have a resurgence, too. At a time when millions of American workers and families are struggling with the financial consequences of the virus, it’s critical to continue the medical war while reopening the economy in a safe and responsible fashion.
{snip}
And based on the record-low price of oil that you’ve been seeing — it’s at a level that’s very interesting to a lot of people — we’re filling up our National Petroleum Reserves. Strategic — you know, the Strategic Reserves. And we’re looking to put as much as 75 million barrels into the reserves themselves. That would top it out. That would be first time in a long time it’s been topped out. We’d get it for the right price.
{snip}
The — some of the articles that just recently came about — if you remember, I put out a statement today. For a month, it was all “ventilator, ventilator, ventilator.” That’s all people could talk about was ventilators. And we did a great job with that. We built a lot of ventilators, to put it mildly. We have so many now that, at some point soon, we’re going to be helping Mexico and Italy and other countries. We’ll be sending them ventilators, which they desperately need. They were a position — they were not in a position to build them themselves.
But we have thousands being built. Every state has had — they have the ventilators. If they don’t, we have almost 10,000 in our Federal Reserve — our “stockpile,” as they call it. And we did a great job with the ventilators.
Unfortunately, the press doesn’t cover it — other than the fair press. But — so then you say, “Gee, I — they need ventilators.” We don’t need ventilators. And that’s — that’s under pressure we did that.
Nobody that needed a ventilator in this country didn’t get one. And a story that just came out: “How the Media Completely Blew the Trump Ventilator Story.” I’m sure you love to see that. That’s by Rich Lowry, a respected journalist and person. “How the Media Completely Blew the Trump Ventilator Story” — which, unfortunately, you did.
And here’s another one that just came out. Kyle Smith. “The Ventilator Shortage That Wasn’t.” “The Ventilator Shortage That Wasn’t” — because we got it fixed. And we’re also going to help the states, by the way, stockpile ventilators. So if a thing like this should happen again, they’ve got them.
{snip}
LIEUTENANT GENERAL SEMONITE: Well, thank you, Mr. President. I just want you to know that, on behalf of all of us in the Department of Defense, our thoughts and prayers go out to all of those patients and all those victims that have been affected by this terrible virus.
{snip}
THE PRESIDENT: You might say, while you’re here, we’re building — the general is in charge of the wall on the southern border, and we want to build 450 miles of wall, and it’s very much under construction. You might give them a little bit of an update: how are we doing with the wall.
LIEUTENANT GENERAL SEMONITE: So, sir, I think the most important thing — and you stressed this and Secretary Esper stressed this — there’s really several different priorities here. Our number-one priority in the Department of Defense and the Corps of Engineers is to protect the team, protect the force. No matter what we do, we’ve got to continue to take care of our civilians and our service members out there.
And so every single thing we’re doing, whether we’re building for the VA, or we’re building for Civil Works projects or for the Department of Defense, or building on the southwest border, we are going out of our way.
I talked to my commanders this morning; we’ve got over 4,000 contractors that are on the ground out there, and we’ve had no positives as of this morning, knock on wood. Same thing with my 400 employees. We’re testing them — not necessarily with the more stringent test, but with temperatures — to be able to make sure that everybody is safe and everybody goes out of their way to do things the right way.
Construction is going very, very smooth. What we’re seeing is our contractors are extremely focused. Now that we’ve — we’ve got a good clear path — both on the CBP program, as well as some of the DOD program — we, I think, are very well postured. It’s a very, very aggressive build, but we’re well postured to be able to meet your expectations, sir, of 450 by the end of December 2020.
THE PRESIDENT: And we’re over 160 miles.
LIEUTENANT GENERAL SEMONITE: A hundred and sixty-four as of today, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: A hundred and sixty-four miles. And we’ll have it done sometime pretty early next year. Very exciting.
LIEUTENANT GENERAL SEMONITE: Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: And you might just say one thing: the quality of that wall, in terms of its power for stopping people that shouldn’t be coming into our country.
LIEUTENANT GENERAL SEMONITE: So, same thing. If you have a standard design that you trust in and it works very well — I’ve got to pat on the back Commissioner Morgan; he was very adamant to continue to be able to make sure that it supports his agents.
And so we’ve got a design now that certainly does that. And then we’ve got a phenomenal contractor workforce that’s in there, my Corps of Engineer employees. And it’s going in well. We don’t see any significant problems.
And I think it’s also important to point out that there — we want to do this the right way, so we try to balance this with environmental considerations that are out there. We’re trying to do due diligence when it comes to anything to do with any of the citizens who are affected. We’re trying to make sure that we’re protecting all of the things that we need to protect and try to find that balance where we can both meet the administration’s directive, while at the same time making sure we’re doing this so that everybody gets a vote and everybody has a fair shake.
{snip}
THE PRESIDENT: Okay? So, General, you have a choice: You can stay and watch — watch these wonderful people ask us really nice questions — or you can go back to building beds.
LIEUTENANT GENERAL SEMONITE: Sir, I got a lot of building to do. I’m going to leave, if you don’t mind.
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead. I had a feeling you were going to say that.
LIEUTENANT GENERAL SEMONITE: Thank you, sir.
{snip}
Q Mr. President, I — on criminal justice reform and these SBA loans: I got an email earlier this morning from a fella in the northwest who owns a supply business. And he has a felony on his record — non-violent felony — in the past five years, which under SBA guidelines makes him ineligible for one of these PPP loans. So he has now had to let go 50 employees, many of whom are criminals trying to get back into society.
I don’t believe there’s anything in the CARES Act that would restrict somebody —
THE PRESIDENT: If you give me the name of the company and his name, I’ll have that checked out, John. I’ll do that.
Q Okay.
THE PRESIDENT: It’s a friend of yours?
Q No, not a friend of mine. No. Just somebody who contacted me out of the blue.
THE PRESIDENT: Why did he call you? He called you to say he’s a criminal and why did he get a loan? Or what — what’s —
Q Because he says he wanted to apply for an SBA loan and couldn’t, and wondered how that squared —
THE PRESIDENT: Okay. If you give me the —
Q — with your drive to criminal reform.
THE PRESIDENT: — name, I’ll look into it.
Q Okay.
THE PRESIDENT: I’d like to look into that, okay?
Q I have a question —
THE PRESIDENT: Kaitlan, go ahead.
Q — on reopening of the country. If these companies that open, and they have employees come back to work and they get sick, will these companies be liable?
THE PRESIDENT: Which companies are you talking about? Under what?
Q Any companies that open. Manufacturing — any kind of company that opens and employees go back to work —
THE PRESIDENT: So we have —
Q — and they get sick, will the company be liable?
THE PRESIDENT: I’ll give you an answer to that. I’ll give you a legal answer to that when we look it up. But we have tried to take liability away from these companies. We just don’t want that because we want the companies to open and to open strong.
But I’ll get you a legal opinion on that.
Q Who would be liable?
THE PRESIDENT: I’ll get you — well, that’s what I’m saying. I’ll get you a legal opinion on it.
Q You — you guys haven’t discussed that yet?
THE PRESIDENT: Nobody has discussed it, no. But we will now.
Q Have any business executives voiced concern to you about being liable, potentially?
THE PRESIDENT: Not one. Not one.
Q They didn’t say it —
THE PRESIDENT: Not at this point.
Q — on the call last week?
THE PRESIDENT: But we’re going to look, because they have talked about general liability. So I’ll get you a specific answer from the lawyers. Okay?
{snip}
Q So just a quick follow-up on that. If we have enough tests right now for everyone to go into phase one, why is the governor of Maryland having to get half a million tests from South Korea?
ADMIRAL GIROIR: I don’t know what the governor of Maryland is doing in South Korea, but there is excess capacity every day. If he wanted to send 30- or 40,000 tests to LabCorp and Quest, that — that could be done. That could be done tomorrow.
Q But he was saying they didn’t have enough that they needed to start to up their testing capacity and make it adequate. So they had to have these late-night meetings —
ADMIRAL GIROIR: I think — I think we’re seeing all across the country —
Q — with South Korea.
ADMIRAL GIROIR: — that in the states that have been hardest hit, their capacity — not only their capacity, their testing far — far exceeds South Korea. And they’ve been able to do that on a relatively straightforward basis. I don’t know what the governor of Maryland — we talked to him today. He didn’t bring that up today.
Q Haven’t you spoke to him about this?
ADMIRAL GIROIR: We were on the governors’ call today.
Q But you haven’t spoken to him, like, personally on this?
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead, Mike.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: We spoke to Governor Hogan today. I’ll follow up, because I heard there was an announcement today about that he had acquired some tests from overseas.
Maybe we could put the slide back up that showed the number of facilities, just in the state of Maryland.
And part of our process — and I don’t know when the governor placed the order from South Korea. Wouldn’t — I wouldn’t begrudge him or his health officials for ordering tests. But the capacity of all the different laboratories and the number of machines that are across Maryland was part of what we were communicating today, including federal facilities. NIH is in Maryland. There’s Department of Defense facilities.
And what we assured the governor then, and we assured all the governors, is that we’ll open up all of those facilities.
{snip}
THE PRESIDENT: And take a look at that map. The governor of Maryland could’ve called Mike Pence, could’ve saved a lot of money. Look at all of the — look at these different places. And that’s Maryland, right there. So, could’ve saved a lot of money, but that’s okay.
Q So you’re saying he didn’t need to go to South Korea for those testing kits?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I don’t think he needed to go to South Korea.
Q Have you guys not spoken to him about this?
THE PRESIDENT: I think he needed to get a little knowledge, would’ve been helpful.
Q Mr. President, on the SBA loans, do you think it’s right that major corporations, major institutions — like the Ritz restaurant chain, like Harvard University — apparently got a lot of money under the CARES Act, money that was supposed to be earmarked for small-business owners. Do you think that’s fair?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I know one thing: I didn’t get any. That’s for sure. I didn’t get any. We’ll look at individual things, and some people will have to return it if we think it’s inappropriate.
Q But should the criteria be changed so that that money goes to people who need it the most?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, it’s being done by great professionals. It’s being done by banks and, as you know, community banks all over the country. They’re — that’s what they do. They loan money, and they’re supposed to do it according to not only criteria, but according to what we think is right. But if somebody got something that we think is inappropriate, we’ll get it back. Okay? Good — good point.
{snip}
Q Me. Okay. Well, thank you so much, Mr. President. My question — I have two questions. The first one is on testing. You talked about the idea that first it was ventilators, and now it’s testing. You seem to maybe possibly be implying that talking about testing is a personal attack on you. Can you explain why you think testing — talking about testing is a personal attack, given that the access to testing has been an issue for a long time? There’s bipartisan outcries still today that there is not enough testing. Why do you think it’s a personal attack on you?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, it’s not bipartisan. It’s mostly partisan. But more importantly than mostly partisan, it’s incorrect. You have — you have the experts. Look at these maps. I mean, you have the maps with so many different locations.
In the case of, as an example, Governor Hogan. He didn’t really know. He really — it was very obvious to any of those listening on the call today — even though you weren’t supposed to be on it, I’m sure that some of you were or representatives were. He really didn’t know about the federal laboratories. Would you say that’s correct, Mike? He didn’t know.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: He didn’t know they were available.
THE PRESIDENT: He didn’t know. And Mike doesn’t like to get into this stuff. He’s less controversial than I am. But he didn’t know about it. And if he did know about it, he would’ve been happy.
No, we’ve done a really good job on testing. Now, with that being said, we have tests coming out perhaps over the next two weeks that will blow the whole industry away. Now, a lot of people love the Abbott test. So do I. You know, the Abbott test is great because it’s, boom, it’s — they touch, they put it in, and in five minutes you have — the problem is that doesn’t do massive numbers like the big machine. But the big machine takes a day, takes a day and a half, you know, with delivery and everything else.
{snip}
Q The second question I had was about your language and how you approached the coronavirus at the beginning. I interviewed someone who said that his family got sick. They went to a funeral in mid-March, and they said mainly because the President wasn’t taking it seriously. He said, “If the President had had a mask on, if he was saying we should stay home, then I would have stayed home. Instead I had family members…”
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I know. I understand.
Q I just want to — and he said his family members were sick because they were — they were listening to you. Do you feel like or are you concerned that downplaying the virus maybe —
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.
Q — got some people sick?
THE PRESIDENT: And a lot of people love Trump, right? A lot of people love me. You see them all the time, right? I guess I’m here for a reason, you know? To the best of my knowledge, I won. And I think we’re going to win again. I think we’re going to win in a landslide.
But just so you understand, you’re talking about March, right?
Q Yeah. But this is —
THE PRESIDENT: And yet — excuse me. Excuse me,
Q — this is an American that’s concerned.
THE PRESIDENT: I know. I understand. And yet, in January, a certain date — you know the date better than I do — we put on a ban of China, where China can’t come in. And before March, we put on a ban on Europe, where Europe can’t come in. So how could you say I wasn’t taking it seriously?
You know, I put on a ban on China before anybody in this country died. I put on a ban. And so you tell me. Nancy Pelosi was having — she wanted to have a street party in Chinatown in San Francisco at the end of February. That’s a month later. And then they tell me it’s only a political talking point. But you feed into it, because you’re too good a reporter to let that happen. Really, you are a good reporter. You’re too good a reporter to let that happen.
Remember this: So at the end of January, I put on a ban. People that were in that room will tell you — I think there were 21 people — I was the only one in the whole room that wanted to do it. Fortunately, I was the one that counted for that purpose. We put on a ban because I was reading bad things about China. World Health Organization should have told us, but I was reading it, with or without them. They should have known. All they had to do is read it. They didn’t have to even be there. But they tried to cover up for China — World Health covered up for China.
Q But you did hold — you held rallies in February and March.
THE PRESIDENT: But — no, no. Wait. But you can’t say this. Look, I put on a ban. In other words, I stopped China from coming to the United States. I stopped Europe from coming into the United States, long before the March date that you’re talking about. So people should say I acted very early. That was a very hard thing to do. Doing that was a very hard thing. I didn’t want to do that.
Q But you held rallies in February and March.
THE PRESIDENT: But I did it because I thought — and Dr. Fauci said that, by doing it, President Trump saved tens of thousands of lives. So I did take it very seriously.
Q You held rallies in February and in March. And there are some Americans saying —
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, I don’t know — I don’t know about rallies. I really don’t know about rallies.
Q You had about five rallies in February.
THE PRESIDENT: I know one thing: I haven’t left the White House in months, except for a brief moment to give a wonderful ship, the Comfort —
Q You held a rally in March.
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t know. Did I hold a rally? I’m sorry I hold a rally. Did I hold a rally? Let me tell you, in January, when I did this, you had virtually no cases and no deaths, and yet I put it on. So how could I not?
Why was Nancy Pelosi — right? — Nancy Pelosi is holding a street fair. She wants a street fair in San Francisco, in Chinatown, to prove — you know what the purpose of it was — to prove that there’s no problem. Many other politicians did the same thing. They wanted to prove —
Q So you (inaudible) —
THE PRESIDENT: While I was — no, of course not. No, no, no. I’ve been — people are amazed at how early I acted, and I did act early. With that being said, it’s very hard to say, “Let’s close down the greatest economy in the history of the world.” I had it closed down. I, and everybody else that works with me, and 300 and — close to 350 million people built the greatest economy in the history of the world: best employment numbers, best stock market numbers, best numbers in virtually every category. Even good manufacturing numbers. The previous administration said manufacturing was dead for our country. Even great manufacturing numbers.
And you know what? I did that, and somebody walked into my office and said, “Sir, you’re going to have to close down the economy. You’re going to have to close the country.” But you know what I say to you? We’re going to rebuild it. And we’re going to rebuild it better, and it’s going to go faster than people think. I built it once; I’ll built it a second time.
Please.
Q Mr. President, thank you. Chanel Rion with One America News.
THE PRESIDENT: Please. Go ahead.
Q We have — in going back to the topic of friendship and bipartisanship — Americans — with the exception of Pelosi, Schumer, and even Romney — Americans have seen an unprecedented chapter of bipartisanship and cooperation on the political landscape. On a personal note, what has been the most significant signal that your relationship with Democrats, below the leadership level, have changed for the good of America?
THE PRESIDENT: I think it’s a great question, because there is bipartisanship. Look, we’re getting the Paycheck Plan. It’s — already $350 billion was approved, essentially unanimously. And we have another 250, which I think you’re going to find out is going to be a higher number than that. Okay? I won’t say it now, because I don’t know if they’ve released it or not, but it’s going to end up being more than $250 billion. And this is going to small businesses and it’s going to workers.
And these are really bipartisan plans. It’s a great thing that’s happening. So I think the fact that we’re able to do all of this in a bipartisan way is great.
Now, the tax cuts that the Republicans did, we had no help from the Democrats, so you can’t say that’s bipartisan. But this whole thing, getting our country back — and, you know, Nancy Pelosi has been — she’s very nasty. She, you know, wasted a lot of time with the impeachment hoax. It was a total hoax. It went nowhere. But — and that was not good. And Schumer, I guess, did the same thing, but he sort of accepted it. He just did what he was supposed to do, and he didn’t do very well with it. But, you know, that was not appropriate. That was a bad thing for our country. But it was fine. I mean, I understand the game.
They have a little bit of a majority. So they say, “Let’s do something and let’s try and stir it up.” But they wasted a year. They wasted tremendous — we could’ve been doing things that would have been great for our country. They could have been looking into China. They should have been looking into China, as an example. A lot of people are blaming the Democrats for wasting all that time, because it was during that period of time, as you know, that it was fomenting.
But I think we’ve had a great spirit of bipartisanship, in a certain way. It’s not — I wouldn’t say we’re going to set records throughout the world, but things are happening that are very good. The country is coming together. And I’ll tell you what: The people are coming together. The people are really coming together. I think you’re going to find that our country is much more unified.
I do think that the press, the media, foments a lot of this — a lot of anger. I really believe it. It foments tremendous anger. For instance, I’ll be asked a tremendously hostile question from somebody, and then I’ll answer to — in a hostile way, which is appropriate; otherwise, you look foolish. Otherwise, it looks like just walk off the stage and bow your head. I can’t do that. You know, I just can’t do that.
But a lot of these questions that are asked from certain networks are so hostile, and there’s no reason for it. There’s no reason for it. We are in a war. This is a World War Two, this is a World War One — where, by the way, the war essentially ended because of a plague. That was one of the worst ever. They lost almost 100 million people. But we’re in a big war.
And I’ll say one thing about — because I think it’s important. The last person — I did it early, but I was the last person that wanted to close down one of the great economic — you can’t call it an experiment, but everything, I guess, in life is an experiment. So I say experiments. But one of the great economic stories in history. I’m the last person who wanted to do it.
But we did the right thing, because if we didn’t do it, you would have had a million people, a million and a half people, maybe 2 million people dead. Now, we’re going toward 50, I’m hearing, or 60,000 people. One is too many. I always say it: One is too many. But we’re going toward 50- or 60,000 people. That’s at the lower — as you know, the low number was supposed to be 100,000 people. We — we could end up at 50 to 60. Okay? It’s horrible. If we didn’t do what we did, we would have had, I think, a million people, maybe 2 million people, maybe more than that.
And you look — there’s one country in particular that decided, “Let’s wing it. Let’s just keep going.” They are being inundated with death. Now, if you take a look at some of the hospitals where — one of them I knew growing up in Queens, and I’m looking at the bodies laying in hallways, being brought into refrigerated trucks. The trucks — these massive trucks, bodies going in. Multiply that times 10. It’s not sustainable.
And many of the people that have this theory, “Oh, let’s — you know, maybe we could have just gone right through it,” I was — I was somebody that would have loved to have done that, but it wouldn’t have been sustainable. You can’t lose a million people. That’s more than — that’s almost double what we lost in the Civil War. I use that as a guide. Civil War: 600,000 people died. So it’s not sustainable. But it could have been much more than a million people.
I mean, if you took a number and cut it half, and half, and in half again, you’d end up at 500,000 people — okay? — if you want to make a very conservative guesstimate. Five hundred thousand people is not acceptable. Is that a correct sort of an analogy?
So, I mean, I see it all the time by friends of mine, by people that I have great respect for: “Well, we could have done this. We could have done…” And remember this: When we say 50 and they compare 50 to the 35 of the flu — because it averaged 35, 36,000 over a 10-year period. It’s a lot. Who would think that? But we’re not talking about with the flu. That’s just — it just goes. We’re not locking ourselves in our units. We’re not locking ourselves in our apartments and not moving and not touching anybody, and just saying — you know, the world. In this case, we are. And we’re still going to lose between 50 and 60.
But if we just kept it going on a normal basis, which is really the only standard that you can compare it to with the flu, because that was a normal basis. You get into an airplane, you travel to Florida, you go to Texas. You go wherever you’re going.
But, in this case, if we didn’t do anything, the number wouldn’t be 50 to 60,000. The number would be a million people dead. It would be a million-five, a million-two. Maybe 700,000. It would have been a number in — like that.
Because — because — and it’s so important because I see so much: “Oh, well, you know, they can…” You can’t compare it, because I’ll tell you what: The people of this country, what they’ve done — they’ve gone out of their way — what they — the way they’ve lived, it hasn’t — it’s not — it’s not great. It’s terrible. Maybe the first three days, and then all of a sudden — you see what’s going on; they want to get going. And I get that fully.
But I just say this: If we would have done that, we would have lost anywhere from a million to more than 2 million people. Now, with all of the death that we’ve seen — and 50- or 60,000 people, heading toward — right now it’s at 40. But 50- or 60,000 people; probably over 50, from what I see. But that’s with our guard up. If we took our guard down and just said, “Okay, we’re just going to keep this open,” we would have lost millions of people. Can you imagine?
Look how bad it looks now, when you look at the bodies. When you look at Hart Island in New York, where they have the mass grave, and all of the things that you see. Can you imagine if we had the guard down, if we didn’t do anything and we just said, “Let’s ride it out”? It would not have been sustainable in any way. It would have been an atrocity.
So we’ve done the right thing. We’ve really done the right thing. And the people that have worked so hard — and dangerously. I’ll tell you — again, I say it, but I watch those doctors and nurses and medical people running into those hospitals, and they don’t even have their gear on. Forget about gear, whether it’s great gear or not. And we’re bringing in the best gear in the world. But they’re running in with open everything, and they’re pushing. I mean, the job — they’re like warriors, the job they’re doing.
But if we didn’t do the moves that we made, you would have had a million, a million and a half, 2 million people dead. So multiply that times 50; you’re talking about — you would have had 10 to 20 to 25 times more people dead than all of the people that we’ve been watching. That’s not acceptable. The 50,000 is not acceptable. It’s so horrible. But can you imagine multiplying that out by 20 or more? It’s not acceptable.
So it’s a very good question. I appreciate it. We’ll see you tomorrow. We’ll see you tomorrow.
END 7:18 P.M. EDT
