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Trump's Remarks in Press Briefing; July 30, 2020
Last edited Thu Jul 30, 2020, 11:26 PM - Edit history (2)
REMARKS
Remarks by President Trump in Press Briefing | July 30, 2020
Issued on: July 30, 2020
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
5:41 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Let me begin by expressing our sadness at the passing of a wonderful man and a dear friend of mine, Herman Cain. He was a very special person. I got to know him very well. And unfortunately, he passed away from the thing called the China virus. And we send our prayers to Herman’s great wife, Gloria. Wonderful family.
{snip}
Now I want to provide an update on our efforts to ensure a strong economic comeback, including our negotiations on Capitol Hill. Throughout this crisis, my administration has taken the most aggressive action in history to rescue American workers. We love our American workers. And we’ve set records on job creation — records — two months in a row.
{snip}
I want to thank Senate Republicans for fighting to extend unemployment benefits today — in the face of very strong Democrat obstruction, which I’m surprised at — because this is great for our country and it’s great for our workers, and it wasn’t our workers’ fault.
{snip}
My administration is also asking Democrats to work with us to pass $105 billion to help schools safely reopen. Children are not [sic] at the lowest risk. If you look at what’s going on: the younger, the better. Amazing — the immune system. For children, the lower they are in age, the lower the risk, in terms of the age group itself.
I tell the story that, in New Jersey, with thousands and thousands of people dying — sadly, dying — the governor was telling me that only one — Phil Murphy — only one died under the age of 18. That’s incredible. Where thousands of people that died in the state of New Jersey, one made an impact; one died under the age of 18.
{snip}
So I just want to thank you all. And if you’d like, we’ll take a few questions.
Steve, please.
Q Are we going to launch an effort to try to delay the election? Or was that just a trial balloon this morning?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, what I want to explain to people, but it doesn’t need much explanation — I mean, you look at article after article: “New York’s Mail-Vote Disaster,” “Tens of thousands of mail ballots have been tossed out in this year’s primaries. What will happen in November?” It’s a mess. This is done by Washington Post. Can you believe it? The Washington Post, of all papers. Fake news, but in this case, it’s not fake, it’s true.
This is done by the Wall Street Journal. Here’s another one, “Vote-by-mail experiment reveals potential problems within postal voting system ahead [in the] November election.” And you see what’s happening with so many different places. They’re doing even trial runs; they’re a disaster.
And I don’t want to see an election — you know, so many years, I’ve been watching elections. And they say the “projected winner” or the “winner of the election” — I don’t want to see that take place in a week after November 3rd or a month or, frankly, with litigation and everything else that can happen, years. Years. Or you never even know who won the election.
You’re sending out hundreds of millions of universal, mail-in ballots — hundreds of millions. Where are they going? Who are they being sent to? It’s common sense; you don’t have to know anything about politics. And the Democrats know this. The Democrats know this, Steve.
So, I want to see — I want an election and a result much, much more than you. I think we’re doing very well. We have the same pho- — fake polls, but we have real polls. We’re doing very well.
I just left Texas. And Biden came out against fracking. Well, that means Texas is going to be one of the most unemployed states in our country. That means Oklahoma, North Dakota, New Mexico are going to be a disaster. Ohio, Pennsylvania — disaster. No fracking.
I want to have the result of the election. I don’t want to be waiting around for weeks and months. And, literally, potentially — if you really did it right — years, because you’ll never know.
These ballots are missing. You saw Paterson, New Jersey. You saw many other instances. There’s tremendous litigation on that right now.
And that doesn’t include absentee. Absentee is different. Absentee — you have to work and you have to send in for applications. You have to go through a whole procedure.
Like, for instance, I’m an absentee voter because I can’t be in Florida because I’m in Washington; I’m at the White House. So, I’ll be an absentee voter. We have a lot of absentee voters, and it works. So we’re in favor of absentee, but it’s much different than millions of people.
In California, they’re going to send out tens of millions of voting forms. Well, where are they going to go? You read where postmen are in big trouble now. You read where city councils are in big trouble now. Voter fraud, all over the — the ballots.
So, no, I want to get — I want to be standing, hopefully, hand held high, big victory, because we’re doing things with our country that I think nobody else could have done. Our country is — despite this pandemic, which is devastating the rest of the world, by the way — devastating.
One of the articles that came out was, “The World’s Covid Resurgence.” This is the Wall Street Journal editorial — the main editorial yesterday in the Wall Street Journal. I don’t always agree with them. But they have “The World’s Covid Resurgence.” “Countries hailed as models [to] see…” — and then they go, the virus returns at a level it’s never — they haven’t even seen.
We’ve been giving praise to certain countries, and the virus has now come to them like — like the first time. But it’s a very interesting — and it talks about many countries where everybody was holding them up and saying what a great job they did. Well, it’s just one of those things. Didn’t work out so well.
So we want to have an election. I’d love to see voter ID, but this is the opposite of voter ID. The Democrats love it; the Republicans hate it. We all agree that absentee voting is good. Mail-in ballots will lead to the greatest fraud.
You know, we talk about “Russia, Russia, Russia” for two and a half years, and then they found nothing, and there was nothing. But they talk “Russia, Russia, Russia.” They talk China. They talk all of these countries. They say they get involved in our elections. This is easy. You can forge ballots. This is much easier for foreign countries.
Go ahead, Steve.
Q But — but delaying the election is probably a nonstarter. I mean, wouldn’t you agree with that?
THE PRESIDENT: I — I just feel — I don’t want a delay. I want to have the election. But I also don’t want to have to wait for three months and then find out that the ballots are all missing and the election doesn’t mean anything. That’s what’s going to happen, Steve. That’s common sense, and everyone knows it. Smart people know it. Stupid people may not know it. And some people don’t want to talk about it, but they know it.
And, no, we want to have an election where people actually go in and — “What’s your name?” “My name is so-and-so.” Boom, you sign the book, like I’ve been doing for years.
It’s very, very unfair to our country. If they do this, our country will be a laughingstock all over the world because everyone knows it doesn’t work.
How many ballots is he sending in California, as an example? Twenty-eight million or some massive number? Other states are sending out millions and millions of ballots. Well, they’ve done it. They had experiments. They had news organizations experimenting.
And, look, read the story in the Washington Post about mail-in voting; it’s a disaster. I’m very surprised to see that story, frankly, from them. The story is a disaster. So we’re asking for a lot of trouble.
And, no, do I want to see a date change? No. But I don’t want to see a crooked election. This election will be the most rigged election in history.
John.
Q So, Mr. President, you said that you don’t want to see a delay in the election, but then it looks like the process of these mail-in ballots is going to continue to November the 3rd.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we have many court cases, John. We have one that’s been filed for a while now in western Pennsylvania, as an example, on mail-in ballots.
Q So, I’m just wondering, is —
THE PRESIDENT: And, by the way, John, we give tremendous examples — numbers of examples of all the fraud and all of the things that have taken place with respect to mail-in ballots.
Q I’m just wondering, is the net effect of what you tweeted this morning and what you’re talking about now to cast doubt on the results of the November 3rd election?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, it’s had an interesting impact. I didn’t know it was going to be the impact it had. What people are now looking at is: Am I right? But not me. Are all these stories right about the fact that these elections will be fraudulent, they’ll be fixed, they’ll be rigged? And everyone is looking at it, and a lot of people are saying, “You know. that probably will happen.”
{snip}
OAN, please.
Q Thank you, Mr. President. Yesterday, DHS came to an agreement with the governor of Oregon to remove federal officers, and Oregon state troopers took over. Mayor Ted Wheeler was noticeably absent from that agreement. Are you confident, sir, that the state of Oregon will be able to quell the protests in Portland? And if the violence does continue, would you consider redeploying federal troops?
THE PRESIDENT: So our people have done — Homeland Security have done a fantastic job. They went to Oregon a little more than a week ago. The place was a mess. The city, Portland, was just a disaster. You see it, and a lot of people weren’t reporting it right. They tried to pretend it was a protest, as opposed to anarchists and agitators. You understand what I’m saying. It’s a mess.
They went there a short while ago, and they saved a federal courthouse that costs hundreds of millions of dollars. And they put a ring around the courthouse and they saved it. But the group that’s there is basically meant to save buildings, and they were very strong, very powerful. And they didn’t come out too often out of this cocoon that they built in order to save these very expensive, valuable, and psychologically important buildings — right? — like courthouses.
The governor and the mayor, we’ve been dealing with them, and we think they don’t know what they’re doing, because this should not have been going on for 60 days. It’s not our job unless, in case of emergency — which I consider now to be an emergency — it’s not our job to go in and clean out the cities. That’s supposed to be done by local law enforcement.
Yesterday, the governor worked a deal where they’ll do it; we’ll stand by, they’ll do it — and that’s good. That was very good, but she didn’t report it that way. What she reported was totally different. She said, “I think Trump wants to take over the country.” It’s crazy.
So what happened is our people are staying there to see whether or not they can do it today and tomorrow. And if they don’t do it, we will send in the National Guard and we’ll take care of it. And we’re telling, right now, these protesters — and many should be arrested because these are professional agitators, these are professional anarchists; these are people that hate our country. We’re telling them, right now, that we’re coming in very soon — the National Guard. A lot of people. A lot of very tough people. And these are not people that just have to guard the courthouse and save it. These are people that are allowed to go forward and do what they have to do. And I think that makes the governor’s job and the mayor’s job a lot easier.
So they’re working today and probably tomorrow to clean out this beehive of — of terrorists. And if they do it, I’m going to be very happy. And then, slowly, we can start to leave the city. If they don’t do it, we’ll be sending in the National Guard.
Please.
Q Mr. Trump, given what’s happening with Major League Baseball and now, today, the Rutgers football team is quarantined, how can you assure people that schools will be safely reopened?
THE PRESIDENT: So, can you assure anybody of anything? I do say, again: Young people are almost immune to this disease. The younger, the better, I guess. They’re stronger. They’re stronger. They have a stronger immune system. It’s an incredible thing. Nobody has ever seen this before. Various types of flu will hurt young people more than older people.
But young people are almost immune. If you look at the percentage, it’s a tiny percent of 1 percent. It’s a tiny percent of 1 percent. So we have to have our schools open. We have to protect our teachers. We have to protect our elderly. But we do have to have our schools open.
Yeah, please. Go ahead.
{snip}
We are way ahead on vaccines, way ahead on therapeutics. And when we have it, we’re all set up with our platforms to deliver them very, very quickly. The vaccines are doing well, the therapeutics are doing well, and we’re all set to deliver them as soon as we have them, and that’s going to be very soon.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
END
6:12 P.M. EDT
Remarks by President Trump in Press Briefing | July 30, 2020
Issued on: July 30, 2020
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
5:41 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Let me begin by expressing our sadness at the passing of a wonderful man and a dear friend of mine, Herman Cain. He was a very special person. I got to know him very well. And unfortunately, he passed away from the thing called the China virus. And we send our prayers to Herman’s great wife, Gloria. Wonderful family.
{snip}
Now I want to provide an update on our efforts to ensure a strong economic comeback, including our negotiations on Capitol Hill. Throughout this crisis, my administration has taken the most aggressive action in history to rescue American workers. We love our American workers. And we’ve set records on job creation — records — two months in a row.
{snip}
I want to thank Senate Republicans for fighting to extend unemployment benefits today — in the face of very strong Democrat obstruction, which I’m surprised at — because this is great for our country and it’s great for our workers, and it wasn’t our workers’ fault.
{snip}
My administration is also asking Democrats to work with us to pass $105 billion to help schools safely reopen. Children are not [sic] at the lowest risk. If you look at what’s going on: the younger, the better. Amazing — the immune system. For children, the lower they are in age, the lower the risk, in terms of the age group itself.
I tell the story that, in New Jersey, with thousands and thousands of people dying — sadly, dying — the governor was telling me that only one — Phil Murphy — only one died under the age of 18. That’s incredible. Where thousands of people that died in the state of New Jersey, one made an impact; one died under the age of 18.
{snip}
So I just want to thank you all. And if you’d like, we’ll take a few questions.
Steve, please.
Q Are we going to launch an effort to try to delay the election? Or was that just a trial balloon this morning?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, what I want to explain to people, but it doesn’t need much explanation — I mean, you look at article after article: “New York’s Mail-Vote Disaster,” “Tens of thousands of mail ballots have been tossed out in this year’s primaries. What will happen in November?” It’s a mess. This is done by Washington Post. Can you believe it? The Washington Post, of all papers. Fake news, but in this case, it’s not fake, it’s true.
This is done by the Wall Street Journal. Here’s another one, “Vote-by-mail experiment reveals potential problems within postal voting system ahead [in the] November election.” And you see what’s happening with so many different places. They’re doing even trial runs; they’re a disaster.
And I don’t want to see an election — you know, so many years, I’ve been watching elections. And they say the “projected winner” or the “winner of the election” — I don’t want to see that take place in a week after November 3rd or a month or, frankly, with litigation and everything else that can happen, years. Years. Or you never even know who won the election.
You’re sending out hundreds of millions of universal, mail-in ballots — hundreds of millions. Where are they going? Who are they being sent to? It’s common sense; you don’t have to know anything about politics. And the Democrats know this. The Democrats know this, Steve.
So, I want to see — I want an election and a result much, much more than you. I think we’re doing very well. We have the same pho- — fake polls, but we have real polls. We’re doing very well.
I just left Texas. And Biden came out against fracking. Well, that means Texas is going to be one of the most unemployed states in our country. That means Oklahoma, North Dakota, New Mexico are going to be a disaster. Ohio, Pennsylvania — disaster. No fracking.
I want to have the result of the election. I don’t want to be waiting around for weeks and months. And, literally, potentially — if you really did it right — years, because you’ll never know.
These ballots are missing. You saw Paterson, New Jersey. You saw many other instances. There’s tremendous litigation on that right now.
And that doesn’t include absentee. Absentee is different. Absentee — you have to work and you have to send in for applications. You have to go through a whole procedure.
Like, for instance, I’m an absentee voter because I can’t be in Florida because I’m in Washington; I’m at the White House. So, I’ll be an absentee voter. We have a lot of absentee voters, and it works. So we’re in favor of absentee, but it’s much different than millions of people.
In California, they’re going to send out tens of millions of voting forms. Well, where are they going to go? You read where postmen are in big trouble now. You read where city councils are in big trouble now. Voter fraud, all over the — the ballots.
So, no, I want to get — I want to be standing, hopefully, hand held high, big victory, because we’re doing things with our country that I think nobody else could have done. Our country is — despite this pandemic, which is devastating the rest of the world, by the way — devastating.
One of the articles that came out was, “The World’s Covid Resurgence.” This is the Wall Street Journal editorial — the main editorial yesterday in the Wall Street Journal. I don’t always agree with them. But they have “The World’s Covid Resurgence.” “Countries hailed as models [to] see…” — and then they go, the virus returns at a level it’s never — they haven’t even seen.
We’ve been giving praise to certain countries, and the virus has now come to them like — like the first time. But it’s a very interesting — and it talks about many countries where everybody was holding them up and saying what a great job they did. Well, it’s just one of those things. Didn’t work out so well.
So we want to have an election. I’d love to see voter ID, but this is the opposite of voter ID. The Democrats love it; the Republicans hate it. We all agree that absentee voting is good. Mail-in ballots will lead to the greatest fraud.
You know, we talk about “Russia, Russia, Russia” for two and a half years, and then they found nothing, and there was nothing. But they talk “Russia, Russia, Russia.” They talk China. They talk all of these countries. They say they get involved in our elections. This is easy. You can forge ballots. This is much easier for foreign countries.
Go ahead, Steve.
Q But — but delaying the election is probably a nonstarter. I mean, wouldn’t you agree with that?
THE PRESIDENT: I — I just feel — I don’t want a delay. I want to have the election. But I also don’t want to have to wait for three months and then find out that the ballots are all missing and the election doesn’t mean anything. That’s what’s going to happen, Steve. That’s common sense, and everyone knows it. Smart people know it. Stupid people may not know it. And some people don’t want to talk about it, but they know it.
And, no, we want to have an election where people actually go in and — “What’s your name?” “My name is so-and-so.” Boom, you sign the book, like I’ve been doing for years.
It’s very, very unfair to our country. If they do this, our country will be a laughingstock all over the world because everyone knows it doesn’t work.
How many ballots is he sending in California, as an example? Twenty-eight million or some massive number? Other states are sending out millions and millions of ballots. Well, they’ve done it. They had experiments. They had news organizations experimenting.
And, look, read the story in the Washington Post about mail-in voting; it’s a disaster. I’m very surprised to see that story, frankly, from them. The story is a disaster. So we’re asking for a lot of trouble.
And, no, do I want to see a date change? No. But I don’t want to see a crooked election. This election will be the most rigged election in history.
John.
Q So, Mr. President, you said that you don’t want to see a delay in the election, but then it looks like the process of these mail-in ballots is going to continue to November the 3rd.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we have many court cases, John. We have one that’s been filed for a while now in western Pennsylvania, as an example, on mail-in ballots.
Q So, I’m just wondering, is —
THE PRESIDENT: And, by the way, John, we give tremendous examples — numbers of examples of all the fraud and all of the things that have taken place with respect to mail-in ballots.
Q I’m just wondering, is the net effect of what you tweeted this morning and what you’re talking about now to cast doubt on the results of the November 3rd election?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, it’s had an interesting impact. I didn’t know it was going to be the impact it had. What people are now looking at is: Am I right? But not me. Are all these stories right about the fact that these elections will be fraudulent, they’ll be fixed, they’ll be rigged? And everyone is looking at it, and a lot of people are saying, “You know. that probably will happen.”
{snip}
OAN, please.
Q Thank you, Mr. President. Yesterday, DHS came to an agreement with the governor of Oregon to remove federal officers, and Oregon state troopers took over. Mayor Ted Wheeler was noticeably absent from that agreement. Are you confident, sir, that the state of Oregon will be able to quell the protests in Portland? And if the violence does continue, would you consider redeploying federal troops?
THE PRESIDENT: So our people have done — Homeland Security have done a fantastic job. They went to Oregon a little more than a week ago. The place was a mess. The city, Portland, was just a disaster. You see it, and a lot of people weren’t reporting it right. They tried to pretend it was a protest, as opposed to anarchists and agitators. You understand what I’m saying. It’s a mess.
They went there a short while ago, and they saved a federal courthouse that costs hundreds of millions of dollars. And they put a ring around the courthouse and they saved it. But the group that’s there is basically meant to save buildings, and they were very strong, very powerful. And they didn’t come out too often out of this cocoon that they built in order to save these very expensive, valuable, and psychologically important buildings — right? — like courthouses.
The governor and the mayor, we’ve been dealing with them, and we think they don’t know what they’re doing, because this should not have been going on for 60 days. It’s not our job unless, in case of emergency — which I consider now to be an emergency — it’s not our job to go in and clean out the cities. That’s supposed to be done by local law enforcement.
Yesterday, the governor worked a deal where they’ll do it; we’ll stand by, they’ll do it — and that’s good. That was very good, but she didn’t report it that way. What she reported was totally different. She said, “I think Trump wants to take over the country.” It’s crazy.
So what happened is our people are staying there to see whether or not they can do it today and tomorrow. And if they don’t do it, we will send in the National Guard and we’ll take care of it. And we’re telling, right now, these protesters — and many should be arrested because these are professional agitators, these are professional anarchists; these are people that hate our country. We’re telling them, right now, that we’re coming in very soon — the National Guard. A lot of people. A lot of very tough people. And these are not people that just have to guard the courthouse and save it. These are people that are allowed to go forward and do what they have to do. And I think that makes the governor’s job and the mayor’s job a lot easier.
So they’re working today and probably tomorrow to clean out this beehive of — of terrorists. And if they do it, I’m going to be very happy. And then, slowly, we can start to leave the city. If they don’t do it, we’ll be sending in the National Guard.
Please.
Q Mr. Trump, given what’s happening with Major League Baseball and now, today, the Rutgers football team is quarantined, how can you assure people that schools will be safely reopened?
THE PRESIDENT: So, can you assure anybody of anything? I do say, again: Young people are almost immune to this disease. The younger, the better, I guess. They’re stronger. They’re stronger. They have a stronger immune system. It’s an incredible thing. Nobody has ever seen this before. Various types of flu will hurt young people more than older people.
But young people are almost immune. If you look at the percentage, it’s a tiny percent of 1 percent. It’s a tiny percent of 1 percent. So we have to have our schools open. We have to protect our teachers. We have to protect our elderly. But we do have to have our schools open.
Yeah, please. Go ahead.
{snip}
We are way ahead on vaccines, way ahead on therapeutics. And when we have it, we’re all set up with our platforms to deliver them very, very quickly. The vaccines are doing well, the therapeutics are doing well, and we’re all set to deliver them as soon as we have them, and that’s going to be very soon.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
END
6:12 P.M. EDT
{snip}
3 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Is it talking about being able to withstand the virus or his choice of partners in the past?? 
