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mahatmakanejeeves

(56,904 posts)
Thu Apr 23, 2020, 11:08 AM Apr 2020

Remarks by Trump, Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing, 04-22-2020

#TrumpPressBriefing today



REMARKS

Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing

HEALTHCARE

Issued on: April 22, 2020

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
6:10 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Appreciate it. A lot of tremendous things are happening. The number of new positive cases continue to decline nationwide. Recent hotspots appear to be stabilizing. The hotspots are, in some cases, very interesting what’s going on. And they’re going down; they’re going in the right direction. Cases in the Boston area are now declining. The Chicago curve appears to have flattened, which is terrific. And Detroit is past its peak.

{snip}

I do want to mention a man who’s done a very good job for us: Dr. Robert Redfield. He was totally misquoted in the media on a statement about the fall season and the virus. Totally misquoted. I spoke to him. He said it was ridiculous. He was talking about the flu and corona coming together at the same time. And corona could be just some little flare-ups that we’ll take care of. We’re going to knock it out. We’ll knock it out fast. But that’s what he was referring to: coming together at the same time.

And I think rather than waiting, I’d ask Dr. Redfield to come up, say a couple of words just to straighten that out, because he didn’t say it was a big — a big explosion. The headline in the Washington Post was totally inaccurate. The statement wasn’t bad in the Post, but the headline was ridiculous, which is — as I say, that’s fake news. And CNN is fake news like crazy, and they had just totally the wrong story, which they knew. They were asked to change it, and they wouldn’t do that. And it was false.

So I’ll ask Dr. Redfield, who is, you know, a real professional, to come up and explain. Please. Thank you, Doctor.

DR. REDFIELD: Thank you, Mr. President. I really do think it’s important to clarify this as we build the confidence of the American people.

When I commented yesterday that there was a possibility of the fall, winter — next fall and winter, it could be more difficult, more complicated when we had two respiratory illnesses circulating at the same time: influenza and the coronavirus-19.

But I think it’s really important to emphasize what I didn’t say. I didn’t say that this was going to be worse. I said it was going to be more complic- — or more difficult and potentially complicated because we’ll have flu and coronavirus circulating at the same time.

{snip}

Q Could I just ask a follow-up on that, Dr. Redfield?

Q Sir, just to clarify your comments —

THE PRESIDENT: But I don’t know what’s to follow up.

Q Well —

THE PRESIDENT: He was misquoted. Totally misquoted. He said they could come together. They didn’t talk about that. And his whole purpose in making the statement was to get a flu shot, so that next fall we don’t have such a big season of flu — and we possibly won’t.

But, as you said, there’s — it’s possible, if the corona even comes back — and he doesn’t know that it’s going to and neither do I. We spoke a great length. And I think the doctor will speak, if you’d like to continue. But we may have some embers — and we’re going to put them out — of corona. But we may have a big flu season. But that’s different. Flu is very different from corona.

Q Can I just ask him a follow-up question?

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, go ahead. Sure.

Q Okay. So, Dr. Redfield, the Washington Post — which, you did the interview with them — they quoted you as saying, “There’s a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be much — even more difficult than the one we just went through. And when I’ve said this to others, they’ve kind of put their head back, they don’t understand what I mean. We’re going to have the flu epidemic and the coronavirus epidemic at the same time.” Is that what you said to the Washington Post?

DR. REDFIELD: Yeah, that’s what I was trying to say to you just a minute ago — that the issue that I was talking about, about being more difficult, is that we’re going to have two viruses circulating the same time.

This spring that we just went through — February — we had a benefit of having the flu season ended, so we could use all our flu surveillance systems to say, “Whoops, this is coronavirus. We need to focus.” Next fall and winter, we’re going to have two viruses circulating, and we’re going to have to distinguish between which is flu and which is the coronavirus.

And so the comment that I made: It’s more difficult. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be more impossible. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be more, as some people have said, “worse.” It just means it’s going to be difficult because we have to distinguish between the two.

And what I was wanting to do and what I want to do again here is appeal to the American public to recognize they can really help, like they did with mitigation, which they really helped. I need them to help now to best prepare us by getting the flu vaccine and taking flu out of the picture.

Q But that quote — but that quote —

THE PRESIDENT: And you may not even have corona coming back, just so you understand.

Doctor, would you like to explain that.

Q No, but — but, I’m sorry, but that quote that I just read was accurate — right, sir? Because that’s the quote from the Washington Post. You were accurately quoted, correct?

DR. REDFIELD: I’m accurately quoted in the Washington Post as “difficult.” But the headline was inappropriate.

THE PRESIDENT: What does the headline say? What does the headline say? Go ahead, read the headline.

Q The headline says, “CDC Director Warns Second Wave of Coronavirus is Likely to be Even More Devastating.” And isn’t that correct? Because —

THE PRESIDENT: That’s not what he says.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It’s not what he said.

THE PRESIDENT: It’s not what he said.

Q But if you have the two things happening —

THE PRESIDENT: The headline doesn’t correspond to the story.

DR. REDFIELD: No. I actually think it’s actually going to be — I think the American public is going to heed the request to relook at their vaccine hesitancy, to vaccine with confidence for flu. And I’m confident that the public health infrastructure that we’re putting together now across this country so that we can early-case diagnose, isolate, and contact trace — as I say, block and tackle, block and tackle — that system is going to be there, and we’re going to be able to contain this virus.

Q Why did you retweet the article if it was inaccurate? Doctor, why did you retweet it?

THE PRESIDENT: You weren’t called.

{snip}

Q Mr. President, I —

THE PRESIDENT: Is that a correct statement?

DR. REDFIELD: Correct.

Q I understand that the United States will certainly be more prepared in the fall, but how can you say that you know it won’t come back in the same level that it has today?

THE PRESIDENT: What — it is estimated it might not come back at all, Jeff. It may not come back at all.

Q But how — how can you —

THE PRESIDENT: He’s talking about a worst-case scenario where you have a big flu and you have some corona. And if it does come back, it’s not going to come back — and I’ve spoken to 10 different people — it’s not going to be like it was.

Also, we have much better containment now. Before, nobody knew about it. Nobody knew anything about it. We understand it. Now, if we have pockets — a little pocket here or there — we’re going to have to put out. It goes out and it’s going to go out fast. We’re going to be watching for it.

But it’s all possible. It’s also possible it doesn’t come back at all.

Q I understand the containment, but I don’t understand how you know it won’t come back on a big scale.

THE PRESIDENT: I didn’t say it’s not. I said if it does, it’s not going to come back on anything near what we went through. But you could have a mess, where they come at the same time. And if they come at the same time — the flu is not the greatest thing in the world, Jeff. It’s not the greatest thing either. If they come at the same time, you have them both.

But if we have embers of corona coupled with the flu, that’s not going to be pleasant, but it’s not going to be what we’ve gone through in any way, shape, or form.

Yeah.

Q If you don’t think that it’s going to come back at the same severity it is right now, why are you still directing that taxpayer dollars be spent on emergency procurement of ventilators? Tens of thousands of —

THE PRESIDENT: Because we have to have them for other reasons. Something else could come. I mean, we didn’t know about corona; now we know about corona. But look at what happened. And now, we did have the H1N1 swine flu. We had that. We have other things that have happened. We had various forms of flu, but nothing like what we’ve had here. Nothing at all like what we’ve had here with the virus. But something could happen.

I think that the stockpiles — we’re making hundreds of thousands of ventilators right now. Nobody writes about that. You know, at the one time, all they talked about was ventilators, right? Because you didn’t think it was possible for me to solve that problem. And I solved it and nobody can believe it.

I just spoke to world leaders today who desperately need ventilators. They said, “The job you’ve done…” And we’re sending 500 to Mexico, then another 500 to France. We’re sending some to Spain. We’re sending some to Italy. We have them — they’re being made by the thousands.

And world leaders — I spoke to Prime Minister — I mean, I went through a lot of different calls today. I won’t even tell you. But I went through — I can give you a list if you want — but I went through a lot of calls to a lot of leaders. Spoke with Pakistan; they would like to have some ventilators. We’re going to get them some ventilators. But they all said to me one thing: It was incredible that you solved the ventilator problem because that was a big problem.

The testing problem. We’ve done more than any other nation in the world. Go a step further: If you added up the testing of every nation in the world, put them together, we’ve done substantially more than that. You people aren’t satisfied.

So let’s say we had 350 million people in the United States, right? Let’s say. And if we gave every one of those people a test 10 times — so we give 350 people a test 10 times — the fake news media would say, “Where’s the 11th time? He didn’t do his job. Trump didn’t do his job.” Because you have a lot of bad reporting out there. It’s very sad. And it’s so bad —

Q But that’s not true. That’s not true. That wouldn’t be the case —

THE PRESIDENT: But you’re one of — you’re one of the leaders of the bad reporting. You know?

Q No, but that’s not true. I mean, this is —

THE PRESIDENT: Okay, let’s get onto another subject. I wanted that to be —

Q Mr. President, can I just follow up on this real quick?

THE PRESIDENT: I wanted that to be cleared up. If you want, we can get on to it later, but I want the Vice President to speak. But you ought to get the news accurately. You ought to write it — if you — if you take a look at what you wrote about the ventilators — and when we became the king of ventilators — we’re making different factories all over. Ventilators by the thousands.

{snip}

I’m excited to announce that, in the coming weeks, the Air Force Thunderbirds — they’re incredible — and the Navy Blue Angels — equally incredible — will be performing air shows over America’s major cities and some of the cities that aren’t major cities. They’re going to be doing a lot of work — a lot of very dangerous flying. It’s dangerous, you know — the odds when you start going at massive speeds and you’re 18 inches away from each other. That’s dangerous work.

Your son is a great pilot. And I don’t know if he could be — could he be a — could he be a Thunderbird? I don’t know.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: We’ll see.

THE PRESIDENT: I think — I think he probably could, from what I hear. I don’t know if I’d want him to be, because it is — it’s incredible what they’re able to do. And to sacrifice our frontline — what we’re doing is we’re paying tribute to our frontline healthcare workers confronting COVID. And it’s really a signal to all Americans to remain vigilant during the outbreak.
This is a — a tribute to them, to our warriors. Because they are equal warriors to those incredible pilots and all of the fighters that we have for the more traditional fights that we win. And we win. If we want to win, we always win. Sometimes we don’t want to win, so we just go to a standstill. But that’s always — that’s not the way this country works.

Operation America Strong was the idea of our great military men and women — the Thunderbirds and the Blue Angels crews who wanted to show support to the American medical workers who, just like military members in a time of war, are fiercely running torward the fight. It’s going to be great. I want to see those shows. I’ve seen them many times and I can’t get enough of them.

And on July 4th, we’ll be doing what we had at the Mall, as you know. We’re going to be doing it. Last year was a tremendous success and I would imagine we’ll do it — hopefully, I can use the term “forever.” That was a great success as you remember, even though it was pouring. It was raining so hard. It was raining at — that was about as hard as I’ve seen in a while, but it was an amazing success. Didn’t bother the pilots. It didn’t bother the military. It didn’t bother the crews that we had there. So we’re going to be doing that again on July 4th.

Our great military is operating at 100 percent during this crisis and thousands of troops are deployed alongside of civilians in the COVID hotspots, as you know. You see them all over. I spoke — when I spoke with Governor Cuomo, and when I spoke to Gavin Newsom, and many of the other governors, they wanted to know if we could have some military help with the medical, and we — we gave it to them. And in every case, they said, “Fantastic.” I mean, just fantastic.

In New York City, Mayor de Blasio called me to say it was inspiring to watch. He was there when the military came in. He said it gave everybody spirit when he saw the professionalism and the spirit that they had. They walked in and they helped a lot of — a lot of people: doctors, nurses, respiratory technicians, and professionals. It was an incredible thing. But they all — everybody that saw them going to work said that was something special.

So we’re going to have some tremendous air shows all throughout our country. And that’s in honor of what we’re all going through together, and the people that are helping us so much, and, unfortunately, the people who have passed away from something that should never have been allowed to happen.

{snip}

And as you know — this was an interesting story in recent days — I’ve called for Harvard — that’s Harvard University, which has a $40 billion endowment fund — to return the money that it was allocated under the CARES Act. And I’m pleased to announce that Harvard has announced today that they will not accept the funds, nor will Stanford University or many of the others that were involved both on a university level. Also on company level, some of the companies were bigger than people had represented or bigger than people had thought and strong enough that they didn’t need the money. So there’s a certain amount of money that we are not sending.

As soon as I heard it, I said, “Stop funds.” And for the most part, I guess, they stopped it, Mike, right? They stopped it. But we’re not — they’re not accepting the money, and that’s great. And so I want to thank Harvard, I want to thank Stanford, and I want to thank the other companies in the case. It’s broken differently between colleges and companies, but I want to thank the companies and the other great universities. And there’s some great ones.

{snip}

Q Mr. President, I wanted to ask you about Rick Bright. He’s the head of the federal agency in charge of getting a vaccine out to — to Americans once it’s ready. He says he has been pushed out of his job because he raised questions about hydroxychloroquine and some of your directives on that. Was he pushed out of that job?

THE PRESIDENT: I — I’ve never heard of him. You just mentioned the name. I never heard of him. When did this happen?

Q This happened today.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I’ve never heard of him. If the guy says he was pushed out of a job, maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. I — you’d have to hear the other side. I don’t know who he is.

Please.

Q And on the hydroxychloroquine —

THE PRESIDENT: Hold on one second, please.

Q I just wanted to — you said by Fourth of July you expect people be on the National Mall and we’ll be having a celebration like we did —

THE PRESIDENT: Hope so.

Q — last year. Given what the doctors are just saying — that, you know, coronavirus is still going to be out there — might not be as bad as it is now, but it’s still going to be circulating — is that — is that going to be safe to have that many people on the Mall for July Fourth?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we’re going to probably have 25 percent of what we had last year. Last year, as you know, it was maxed out — maxed out. I saw a magnificent picture of Dr. Martin Luther King and I saw a magnificent picture of our event last year, and both of them were maxed out. It was beautiful to see. Beautiful. Very similar.

This year, most likely, we’ll be standing six feet apart. We’ll have to do that in a very, very interesting way. And maybe we’ll even do it greater, so we’ll leave a little extra distance. But if we do that, we’d certainly do that.

I — I don’t see, maybe, the purpose if we can’t do that. We have to have people. Thousands — we had tens of thousands — most of you were there — tens of thousands of people last year. It was incredible. And it was, to an extent, an air show of all the different aircraft flying over. We even had Air Force One flying over.

So ideally, it would be wonderful if we could actually have it as it was last year. But — and, eventually, we’ll — we will have that. I think it’s important to know: Eventually, we are going to have that.

Your stadiums are going to be the way —

Q You think by July you’d be able to have —

THE PRESIDENT: — they’ve been for the last hundred years.

Q By July, you’d be able to have a —

THE PRESIDENT: No, I know. But your stadiums — as an example, sports — are going to be the way they used to be. I mean, I told one of the owners. He said, “Do you think I should take out seats?” I said, “No, you shouldn’t take out seats.” We’re going to have it the way it was. We’re going to be back.

This virus will eventually be gone. And if it should show up in the fall, we’re going to put it out very fast. We have great people. We’re going to put it out very fast, because we’ve learned a lot. We’ve learned a lot about how to deal with this, and we’ll put it out very fast.

{snip}

Q Mr. President, can I ask you about your conversation with Governor Kemp? What did he say to you when you said you strongly disagreed with him? And, of course, for gym owners and tattoo parlor artists and barbers in Atlanta — I mean, Georgia, generally — would you advise them to listen to you and not to their governor?

THE PRESIDENT: Look, I’d like them to listen to their governors. All of their governors. I have the right to do, if I wanted to clamp it down, but I have respect for our governors. They know what they’re doing, I think. And, as you know, Brian Kemp, governor of Georgia, I worked very hard for his election. He beat their superstar. He beat the superstar of their party. I think you can say, I helped a lot.

Michelle Obama, Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey — they all went in. They campaigned for him very, very hard, and he lost. He also was way down in a primary, and he ended up winning a primary after I came out and endorsed him. So, a lot of good things and there’s a lot of good feeling between myself and Brian Kemp. I like him a lot.

I happen to disagree with him only on time and timing. I disagree. When you have spas, beauty parlors — and I love these people — I know the people from spas and beauty parlors, tattoo parlors. Bikers for Trump — a lot of tattoos. I love them. I love these people. And barbershops. These are great people. But you know what? Maybe you wait a little bit longer until you get into a phase two.

So do I agree with him? No. But I respect him, and I will let him make his decision. Would I do that? No. I’d keep them a little longer. I want to protect people’s lives. But I’m going to let him make his decision. But I told him: I totally disagree.

{snip}

OAN, in the back, please.

Q Mr. President, thank you. Can we talk about Iran? You put out a message this morning making a rather big announcement for our military when it comes to Iranians’ — Iranian aggression. Are you going to change, formally, rules of engagement for our U.S. military so that they can engage?

THE PRESIDENT: No. We’re covered — we’re covered 100 percent. We don’t want their gunboats surrounding our boats and traveling around our boats and having a good time. We don’t want them anywhere near our boats. And — so you know the order I gave. I don’t think I have to say it again, but I’ve given that order.

Under the Obama administration, it was taking place all the time. Under my administration, I gave this order early on and nothing happened. They were very nice; they were no problem. But then I noticed yesterday, they did that in a much lighter form, but they did that again. I said, “We’re not going to — we’re not going to stand for it.”

So if they do that, that’s putting our ships at danger and our great crews and sailors at — in danger. I’m not going to let that happen. And we will — they’ll shoot them out of the water.

Q So the U.S. military does not have to change its rules of engagement in order to follow your directive?

THE PRESIDENT: No, that’s not rules of engagement; that’s a threat when they get that close to our boat. And they have guns. They have very substantial weapons on those boats. But we’ll shoot them out of the water. Okay?

{snip}

Q — is: Earlier in these briefings, you talked a lot about giving Americans hope and you wanted to focus on that. But now that the crisis seems to perhaps be lessening, I wanted to ask you about accountability. And, of course, million — millions of Americans became familiar with you as the tough boss who fired people for doing a poor job. I wanted to ask you about two specific things. There was a report from Reuters today that the HHS Secretary put a former dog breeder in charge of day-to-day coronavirus efforts, to begin with. And also on —

THE PRESIDENT: He did what? What?

Q Reuters reported today that Alex Azar, the Secretary of HHS, put a former dog breeder — that was his most recently former job — in charge of day-to-day operations of the coronavirus.

THE PRESIDENT: That, I don’t know. But I — you’re just telling me something. And what’s the second?

{snip}

Q There’s been the now argument made that you knew about the asymptomatic transmission at the time that you said that and that you were essentially misleading the public?

THE PRESIDENT: No, I think it’s (inaudible).

SURGEON GENERAL ADAMS: Well, I made —

THE PRESIDENT: He’s answered that question.

SURGEON GENERAL ADAMS: The honest answer to you is: No, we did not. That was a recommendation of the World Health Organization and the CDC, and we gave you the best information we could at the time.

So I actually, a little bit, resent that implication because I work hard to try to protect the American people, and we are always going to give the American people the best information we have available at the time. And we don’t — and we have — we’re humble enough to say, “Look, if we don’t know, we’re going to change. We’re going to change our recommendations.”

THE PRESIDENT: Just a wise-guy question, that’s all.

Q Mr. President —

THE PRESIDENT: Please, go ahead.

Q Mr. President, I wanted to ask you about the launch of the military satellite by Iran. I wanted to get your response to that. Do you see this an advancement of the missile program?

THE PRESIDENT: You mean the shot they took? Well, they say no. Okay? They say all sorts. “It was for television”. Does anybody really believe that? They want to have better television in Iran, so they say.

No, we’re watching Iran very closely. Very closely.

Q Are you concerned —

THE PRESIDENT: We know more about Iran than they do. Right now, we know more than they do. So we know all about it. We watched it; we knew it was going up. We followed it very closely. They say it was for television.

Yes, please.

Q Are you concerned, though, Mr. President?

Q Mr. President, I have a question for Dr. Fauci.

THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead. Finish up there, please.

Q Yeah, very quickly. Are you concerned that they see this as a potential vulnerability on the part of the United States? There is the outbreak —

THE PRESIDENT: See what? What is vulnerable?

Q Military readiness. The outbreak on the Roosevelt, the fact that you’re consumed with dealing with coronavirus here in the United States.

THE PRESIDENT: Her, I read where various navies have had outbreaks of COVID. Look, we’re in 184 different — different nations right now. A hundred and eight-four — the COVID.

No, we have a problem on — that just shows you how rapidly it spreads. It started off with two sailors and then 10 sailors and 20, and now I hear it’s 540, of which one has died and a few are very sick. But most of them are back in — you know, in great shape. But we did — we did lose one, and it attacked the lungs of that young person. And then we also had a number of that were quite sick, but they’re all either better or getting better. But most of them are better for a long time already.

{snip. Now it's Weijia Jiang's turn to get insulted again.}

Q Mr. President, yes, I just had a follow — a question for Dr. Fauci, if you don’t mind.

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, sure.

Q And I’m happy to ask you one after. So Jon had asked the President about Rick Bright, and he said he wasn’t sure who that was, but I’m — I’m sure you’re familiar who he is since he was the head of BARDA. So this concern or an accusation he’s raised that he was removed from his job because he protested widespread use of hydroxychloroquine, are you familiar with the situation? And do you feel like public health experts feel they are able to speak publicly or to speak out in opposition to the things?

DR. FAUCI: Here I am.

Q Yeah.

DR. FAUCI: So you don’t feel like there’s any concern among —

DR. FAUCI: No. No.

Q — people at the NIH right now or in the public health community?

DR. FAUCI: At the NIH, absolutely not.

Q Dr. Fauci, knowing Dr. Bright and knowing what his gifts are as one of the country’s leading experts on vaccines, are those gifts best suited at NIH rather than BARDA? What’s he going to be doing with you?

DR. FAUCI: What is he going to be doing at the NIH?

Q So, first of all, are his gifts best suited to work with you rather than BARDA?

DR. FAUCI: No, I — I can’t — I don’t really think I can comment on somebody’s relative gifts. I mean, he’s — he’s going to be at the NIH, and he’s going to be responsible, from what I hear — again, this is what I’ve heard — that he’s going to be responsible for the development of diagnostics, which is very, very important.

The NIH is going to be involved in trying to develop new-generation diagnostics, which we feel is going to be very important for the future of being able to facilitate the kinds of things that now are sometimes problematic.

Q Are you concerned at all that he —

THE PRESIDENT: And why did you say that he has great gifts or gifts? What, do you know him?

Q Well, that’s his expertise. I mean, I’m just looking at his résumé.

THE PRESIDENT: No, no, but have you reviewed him? Have you — have you studied him? Have you reported on him? You said, “his gifts.” His gifts. I mean —

Q He’s worked his entire career developing vaccines, including the —

THE PRESIDENT: Well, that doesn’t mean you have gifts. I know a lot of people, they play baseball, but they can’t hit 150 in the Major Leagues.

Q Well, he helped develop the flu vaccine last year.

THE PRESIDENT: No, no, but you talk about his great gifts.

Go ahead, please.

Q Mr. President, thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Please, go ahead. You can go. Please.

Q Thank you, sir. I have two questions, one for myself and then one for a colleague of ours who cannot be here today because of social distancing.

THE PRESIDENT: From where? From where?

Q I’m with USA Today. First, the executive director of the National Association of Counties said today that the White House did not want to see money for local — state and local governments in the latest COVID assistance package.

THE PRESIDENT: And they didn’t want to say what? What does that mean? Tell me.

Q I’m sorry?

THE PRESIDENT: What does it mean? Repeat it. Say it a little differently.

Q The executive director of the National Association of Counties said today that the White House objected to putting funding for state and local governments into the latest COVID assistance package.

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, really? That’s interest- — is he a Democrat?

Q I do not know, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, check it. How can you ask that questions without knowing?

Q Okay. Well — but what —

THE PRESIDENT: Check it out. You’ll find out.

Q I’ll check it out. But he says —

THE PRESIDENT: Okay, what’s the next question?

Q His question was —

THE President: You know, the numbers — you know, the money we put into states, local governments, everything else? And they have to be responsible for their own finances. But you check it out. Go ahead. What’s the next —

Q Well, his point was — he said that you felt like that this would somehow be a disincentive for states to open their economies. Is he correct about that?

THE PRESIDENT: How would he know what I felt? I never spoke to him. I don’t even know who he is.

Q I’m asking you, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: You don’t know who he is either.

Q Yes, his name is Matthew Chase, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay, it doesn’t help me, and it doesn’t help you.

Okay, go ahead, Jeff.

Q Mr. President, also a follow-up —

THE PRESIDENT: Do we want to keep going a little while longer or no?

Q Yes. Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: You’re not going to say, “Oh, he took questions all night long”?

Q No, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay? Right?

Q Yes, please. Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay, well, good. How many questions can you ask? Go ahead.

Q Also —

THE PRESIDENT: We — we all have fun, because we’re talking about something very important.

The main thing is I think we’re getting to a lot of solutions. We never want this to happen again. We never want this to happen again — what happened. And if it should come back in some form, we want to snuff it out very quickly before anything can happen.

And I personally hope it doesn’t come back in the fall as a combination of the flu or not as a combination of the flu. But I think we learned a lot. And, you know, some of these questions are good. Some of them are ridiculous, frankly, but some of them are very — I think some of them are very important questions. Very important. You know, when you asked Dr. Fauci about the right to speak — if I let him speak, I’ll let anybody speak. And we love him.

Let’s go.

Q Mr. President, Senator — Senator McConnell said today that he would prefer to see states that have high public pensions declare bankruptcy, rather than taking on more —

THE PRESIDENT: I — I heard he said that.

Q — federal bailout money.

THE PRESIDENT: I don’t know — I don’t know what he said. I’ll have to call him and ask him.

Q That’s what he said.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, that’s okay. I’m going to have to look at it directly.

Q Would you agree with him on that? Or —

THE PRESIDENT: I can’t tell you that. I have to see — I want to base it on fact and reason. I want to see what he said — you know, why he said it and how he said it. I’d have to watch him say it. But some of the states are not doing well, let’s face it. And some are doing phenomenally well. A state where Mike was governor, Indiana — I looked at their numbers. They have — it’s incredible what they’re doing.

Some states are doing fantastically well. Iowa is doing great. You have — you have states doing well, and you have some states that aren’t doing well. We know the ones. I don’t have to mention the ones that aren’t doing well, but you do have states that are in trouble. And certainly they’re coming back to talk to us. We’ll see what happens.

Q Are you concerned — are you concerned, sir, about the growing U.S. national debt as a result of these stimulus packages?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we have a choice. Do we have a choice? Yeah. I’m always concerned about everything. We had to fix this problem. This was — we were attacked. This was an attack. This wasn’t just, “Oh, gee.”

And this wasn’t the flu, by the way. You know, they like to say the flu. Nobody has ever seen anything like this. 1917 was the last time. We were attacked. We had the greatest economy in the history of the world. We had the greatest economy — better than China, better than any place. They will tell you that. I dealt with them for a long time, and they will tell — we have the greatest economy and we built it in the last three years, three and a half years we built it.

And then one day, they came and they said, “You have to close it.” I said, “You got to be…” “These people right here, they said you have to…” They came into my office — into the Oval Office, and they said, “We have to close the economy.” I said, “Let’s explain this. Explain this to me.” The greatest ever in history and we had to close it.

Now we’re going to open it again, and we’re going to be just as strong or stronger. But you have to spend some money to get it back open. We saved our airlines. We just, as you know, finished up with the airlines. We saved numerous companies — that are great companies — that, two months ago, were having the best year they’ve ever had. Now, all of a sudden, they’re totally shut out of markets.

There was a great spirit today. You know, the fact is some of the governors are opening up their states. And I saw it. I feel it. I don’t know if you folks feel it. I feel it. There was a great spirit today. I don’t know, the stock market was up today, I guess. It was up quite a bit when I just walked out here.

And I will say I feel much different today than I did two or three days ago, and I think the world does. We spoke to a lot of leaders. The world feels that we’re really leading a path of optimism. The European Union is having a lot of difficulty. You know, you take a look at what’s going on with the European Union; it’s having tremendous difficulty.

But we’re going to be back, and we’re going to be back stronger than ever. We’re going to be at a level, I think, that everybody is going to be look — and they do; they look up to us. They want to know what are we doing. What are we doing with therapeutics? What are we doing with vaccines? We’re going to have those answers too. We’re going to have them, just like we took care of ventilators, just like we’re taking care of — and, already, as we said 100 times, we had more testing than any nation in the world. We had more testing than all of those nations put together that we mentioned the other day — all of them put together. And we’re going to be, within two weeks, at a level that nobody has ever even seen before.

They’ve never seen where we are right now. You don’t have to build new machines. You don’t have to build new labs; we already have them. But some of the labs are even upgrading to be able to double and triple their capacity, in one case. No, we’re at a level that nobody has ever been. We’re going to be bigger, better, and stronger than ever before. So I’m not concerned about that.

Thank you very much.

END

7:48 P.M. EDT
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