Earlier today President Donald Trump led a roundtable discussion with industry leaders on reopening the American economy. President Trump noted his administration built the greatest economy in American history before COVID-19 and is already at work on the “transition to greatness” to restore well-paying jobs and prosperity to all Americans.
Participating in the discussion with President Trump is: Larry Kudlow, Director of the National Economic Counsel; Ambassador Debbie Birx, M.D., White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator; Kevin Hassett, Senior Economic Advisor to the president; Tim Pataki, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Public Liaison; Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia.
External participants: Geoff Ballotti, President and CEO, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts; Brian Goldner, Chairman of the Board and CEO, Hasbro; David Hoffmann, CEO, Dunkin’ Brands; Gary Kelly, Chairman of the Board and CEO, Southwest; Rodney McMullen, Chairman and CEO, Kroger; Oscar Munoz, Executive Chairman, United; Brad Smith, President, Microsoft and Sonia Syngal, CEO, Gap Inc.
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow weighs in on reopening of U.S. economy in a post-pandemic country. White the second quarter economic data has more bad news yet to be assembled and reported, the U.S. economy, workers and consumers are poised to make a Great American Recovery.
The U.S. stock market is looking forward and climbing in response to the economic reopening; while -as expected- many blue state governors are intentionally attempting to hold back their economies and planning for a federal bailout to cover their revenue shortfalls. Remove the possibility for a bailout and those governors will be forced to join the reopening.
Earlier today President Trump participated in a “Rolling to Remember Ceremony” honoring our nation’s veterans and POW/MIA. The motorcycle community celebrates the event each year in Washington DC. [Video and Transcript Below]
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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. And we really — you’re my friends and you’ve been supporting me right from the beginning. I appreciate that you’re here. And we’re here for you. And I told you, when you want to come back with your 600,000, we’re ready to take you. But you’re going to give us a little display on those beautiful bikes. And you’re going to be — I’ve never seen anyone do that actually. You must have special privileges. I’ve never seen anybody ride through here.
But I want to welcome you, and I want to welcome my friends. You’re the “Rolling to Remember.” And that’s what it is: “Rolling to Remember.” And we will be commemorating Memorial Day. It’s a big thing.
Together, our nation pays immortal tribute to the extraordinary courage, unflinching loyalty, and unselfish love, and supreme devotion of the American heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice. And that’s what you’re here for. It’s the ultimate sacrifice, and it is indeed. They laid down their lives to ensure the survival of American freedom. Their names are etched forever into the hearts of our people and the memory of our nation. And some of you, it’s been very close — very, very close. It’s very close to your heart. We’ll cherish them and our Gold Star families for all time. We take good care of them. They’re very special to us. Just as we’ll always remember the nearly 82,000 Americans missing in action.
We’re joined today by Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie. Where is Robert? Hi, Robert. Great job you’re doing, Robert. (Applause.)
You know, we got the Veterans Choice and Accountability. Choice is when they wait for two months to see a doctor before. They have to wait like a few hours. They outside, they get themselves a good doctor, we pay the bill, and they get taken care of. So, you know, the stories were legendary. You don’t hear bad things about the VA anymore. You used turn on — every night, you’d see a horror show. So, I want to thank you. You’ve done a fantastic job, Robert. What a great job.
Accountability, also. We got VA Accountability. Sounds easy, but when you have civil service and you have unions and you have all of this — for 40, 50 years, they’ve been trying to get rid of it. That’s — they don’t take care of our vets, we fire them. Before, you couldn’t. They were sadists. They were thieves. And I think you’ve let go of more than 8,000 people — right? — who were terrible. They’ve been trying to fire them for years. They didn’t take care of our vets. Just the opposite: They were horrible. Now they’re gone. We got them out. So that’s a big thing. So it’s Robert Wilkie. Thank you very much.
National Commander of AMVETS Jan Brown — where’s Jan? Jan, thank you very much. Good job. Good job you’ve done here. (Applause.) You got this very special group. They’re going to be doing a very special ride. I’m going to get to watch you, I hope. Right? Because I don’t know. Sometimes I look at those bikes — I don’t know, they’re pretty tough, right?
And Actor Robert Patrick, who has been in many films and television shows. I know that well. Most notably as T-1000 in “Terminator 2.” That’s not too bad, huh? (Applause.) You’re looking good. You’re looking good, Robert.
I want to especially recognize the Legendary AMVETS Riders, who made “Rolling to Remember” possible. For 32 years, Rolling Thunder — my friends — carried out a ride of remembrance. And now we’re going to continue that onward. And the Rolling Thunder people were terrific — Artie and everybody. They really were. We had a good relationship with them. You know that, right? Say — you’re going to say hello to my Artie. And I heard they were giving him a hard time a couple of years ago, and I said, “Nope. No hard time.” But people do get older, right? (Laughs.) They get a little bit — he said, “I’m getting a little older.” So, but Artie is terrific, and the whole group is terrific. And thank you for keeping this noble tradition alive and for preserving the memory of those who are missing, but never forgotten. Never forgotten.
My administration will spare no effort or resource to support the men and the women who defend our nation. We’ve secured over $2.1 trillion in funding to completely rebuild American military with two hun- — and think of that: 2.1 trillion — 2.1. Not — not billion. You know, it used to be “million.” And then, about 10 years ago, you started hearing “billion.” And now you’re starting to hear “trillion,” right? So it’s a — I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but it’s good when we’re spending $2.1 trillion in funding on our military. Completely rebuild the milit- — the military.
Our American military now has the greatest equipment, the finest equipment it’s ever had. It’s been entirely rebuilt. Some of the equipment is still coming — all made in America, everything. And when I came here — and you people knew it better than anybody — our military was depleted, just like the shelves were empty from medical equipment.
We didn’t have ventilators. We didn’t have testing. We didn’t have anything. And now we have great testing, the best in the world. We have great ventilators. We’re making thousands and thousands of them. And we’re actually now so loaded with ventilators that we’re helping other countries, and therefore saving lives also.
But our American military, with the 281 — that’s a lot of planes — F-35 fighter jets, the best in the world; 453 Abrams tanks; 14,400 tactical combat vehicles; 2 aircraft carriers; 36 additional battleships, and much more. All made in the USA.
So importantly, we’re giving our service members the resources, tools, and equipment they need. We’re even getting brand-new, beautiful uniforms. Doesn’t sound like much. If I told you what it costs, it’s a lot — for the Army. The Army has new uniforms and they are gorgeous.
We passed the largest reform of the Department of Veterans Affairs in the — I think, in the history of the department, including VA Accountability and, I said, VA Choice. We’ve removed 8,500 VA workers who weren’t doing their job, who were taking advantage of our country and hurting our vets.
The percentage of veterans reporting they trust services — think of that, they trust services; so they report, and they say they trust services — has reached the highest in the history of the VA, Secretary. That’s a big statement. So the percentage of veterans reporting that they trust the VA and the VA services is now the highest in the history of the service. Satisfaction with the VA outpatient care has reached 89 percent, and we’re not going to rest until we have it at 100 percent, Robert.
I also formed the PREVENTS — it’s called PREVENTS Task Force. (Applause.) Well, you guys — how many of you — how many are vets here.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: All of us.
THE PRESIDENT: Big difference between now and the way it used to be, right?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Oh, yeah.
THE PRESIDENT: Big difference. I also formed the PREVENTS. I got to be careful when I ask that question. Sometimes somebody could say, “Oh, we used to like it better.” That would not be good, right? (Laughter.) You know that would go on the fake news immediately, right? That’s all they’d cover, so I have to be very careful. But thank you.
I also formed the PREVENTS Task Force to fight the tragedy of veteran suicide, which is an unbelievable tragedy. And we actually have medications that we’re working on. They have one from Johnson & Johnson, which is a inhaler, and it has been very effective. We’ve ordered, I think, thousands of units of that — thousands and thousands — and we’re using it.
When the invisible enemy struck our country, my administration quickly secured VA medical facilities. We’re keeping the sacred covenant. We’re protecting those who sacrificed so much to protect us. I was very early. In fact, out of many, many people, I was the only — the one that wanted to do it. I guess I was the only one that mattered. But I kept China out of the United States.
I put a ban on China in January, and I took a lot of heat. Joe Biden said, “Oh, he’s xenophobic.” Oh, that’s right. Yeah. But a month later, he said I was right.
As you know, Dr. Fauci, a good guy, said, “You don’t need to do that.” And then later on, when he saw that I did it and when we kept thousands — tens of thousands of people out, he said, “Donald Trump saved thousands of lives, tens of thousands of lives.” And we did.
So we did it very early, and that was a very important — the ban on Chinese people, people from China coming in. Because I was seeing how badly infected the one area, Wuhan, was, so I put a ban on.
And everybody thought — Nancy Pelosi, a month later, was in Chinatown in San Francisco. She’s dancing in the streets of Chinatown, trying to say, “It’s okay to come to the United States. It’s fine. It’s wonderful. Come on in. Bring your infection with you.” And then she said, “He should have done it earlier” — about me. And she’s dancing a month later. These people are sick.
Anyway, last year, I signed the National POW/MIA Flag Act, which requires that all federal buildings fly the POW/MIA flag, in addition to the American flag. In the months — (applause) — right? And you see them all over Washington now. And they could be separate from the flag. You can do a separate placement or you could put it under the flag.
In the months since, that righteous flag has proudly flown over the White House; you probably noticed it today. But that reminder is the work left — and we have work left. But we have to get it. We have to win the White House, otherwise a lot of the great things that we’ve done — we’re going to do great with our economy; we’re going to see — you already see it starting to happen. We’re trying to get some governors — they’re not opening up, but they’ll be opening up pretty quickly.
Today, I just spoke to CDC. We want our churches and our places of faith and worship; we want them to open. And CDC is going to be — I believe today they’re going to be issuing a very strong recommendation. And I’m going to be talking about that in a little while. But they’re going to be opening up very soon. We want our churches open. We want our places of faith, synagogues — we want them open. And that’s going to start happening. I consider them essential, and that’s one of the things we’re saying. We’re going to make that essential.
You know, they have places “essential” that aren’t essential, and they open. And yet the churches aren’t allowed to open and the synagogues and — again, places of faith — mosques, places of faith. So that’s going to — see that — you’re going to see that.
I just want to say you’ve been tremendous supporters of mine. The bikers — I call them “the bikers.” They’re bikers — for whatever reason, you liked me from the beginning and I liked you from the beginning. And I remember, I went to Hilton Head and I went to other places, and there’d would be thousands of bikes outside, and they were all in support.
And they actually said, “No, we don’t have to…” — because there was no room. There’s always — we’ve never had an empty seat, from the time I came down the escalator with our future First — First Lady. Who would have thought, right?
Remember they were saying, “What’s he doing?” And then — but there were a lot of people that thought we’d win, and we won. And we won pretty easily too: 306 to 223. That’s pretty easy. And we went through a primary that was tough, and you were there with me. We went through an election, and that tough, and you were there with me. Always there, the bikers. I think — what do I have? Ninety-eight percent? Ninety-five? We’re trying to find who are the 3 percent or the 2 percent. We’re looking for them, right? We’re all looking for them.
But I’ll never forget, I made a speech in a place. It was packed. You couldn’t get in. I said, “Fellas, I’ll do a second one.” They said, “No, no, we don’t have to hear. We know what you’re about. We know where you’re coming from, sir. We’re here to protect you. We’re not here to listen; we’re here to protect you.” I never forgot it. I never felt so safe. And there were a lot of rough guys in that little group of about 1,000 bikes, by the way. Maybe more than that. A lot of rough people. But I tell you: To me, they were beautiful people. But I never forgot that: “We’re not here to hear your speech, sir. We’re here to protect you.” And I thought it was an incredible thing.
So you’ve been my friends. I want to thank you very much for it. Get those engines started. I want to see you guys drive around and drive as fast as you can, but don’t get hurt. (Laughs.)
(The bikers complete a lap around South Lawn Drive.)
That was great. And I want to say this to Robert and Jan and every one of you — say hello to everybody. November 3rd is a big day. We don’t want to destroy this country. We’re going to make it bigger, better, greater than ever before. You’re going to see it happening very soon. We’re coming into the third quarter. That’s “transition to greatness.” Third quarter: transition.
Get out there. Work. November 3rd — November 3rd is the big day. Get all those ‘cycles going there.
But we appreciate you being here. Go have some fun. And we love you all. Thank you very much and thank you. Thank you very much, Jan. Thanks. Thank you.
On Thursday afternoon President Trump delivered remarks after a tour of the Ford Motor Company Rawsonville Components Plant in Michigan. [Video and Transcript Below]
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[Transcript] THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Well, thank you very much. I like that dais very much, actually. That’s very special. Nice wood. Beautiful like the dashboards on your cars, Bill. Right?
MR. FORD: Absolutely.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. And I just heard you’re going to be having two more — two thousand more jobs right down the road for the Bronco, which is a big winner. That’s great. Fantastic job. Thank you very much, Bill.
MR. FORD: Thank you, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you. It’s right down the road. (Applause.) It’s an honor to have Bill with us. Thank you very much.
And I’m thrilled to be back in Michigan. We’ve done a lot of work in Michigan. A lot of plants are opening. A lot of plants stopped — we stopped them from closing. And we kept your workers here in Michigan and in the United States — different places, as you know, all over the United States. But it’s an honor to do it. It’s one of the reasons I’m standing here.
In fact, years ago, I was honored. Long before I ever thought of the presidential situation, I was honored in Michigan. And I said, “How come you’re losing so much of your car business to Mexico and other places?” And I asked that question very innocently; it was probably 10 years ago. The “Man of the Year” — they named me “Man of the Year” in Michigan. And I said, “What’s going on in Michigan?” And we’ve stopped it.
And thanks to a lot of great companies like Ford, a lot of things are happening here. And it’s why I’m so honored when — when Bill mentioned the plant, that you’re going to be doing 2,000. And it’s also a great success, the Bronco. So that’s really — really big news. Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause.)
And I’m honored to stand on a factory floor operated by the incredible workers of Ford Motor Company. You really are tremendously talented people. I know it. I’m not sure everybody in the world knows it, but a lot of people do and they’re all going to know it after this speech. But you are really talented, great people. Thank you very much for doing a great job. (Applause.) We know what it takes. Few people have that ability. Few.
In our nation’s war against the invisible enemy, the hardworking patriots here today answered the call to serve. You proved that the American worker is “Built Ford” and you’re “Built Ford Tough.” A great expression. You still use that expression, I think, Bill. Right? That’s a great expression. And you’re — let’s see, can I use it for maybe myself? “Built Trump Tough.” I don’t know. They may say that’s a takeoff; that’s no good. You can’t do that.
And you’ve made, really, America proud and you’ve made Ford proud. And America is very proud of Ford. Right here at the Rawsonville Component Plant, you’re building a great medical arsenal to defeat the virus and cement America’s place as the leading manufacturer and exporter of ventilators anywhere in the world. We’re now getting calls from other countries — many other countries, both friend and foe, believe it or not. We get calls from foe. And we want to help them out, too. And we’re making thousands and thousands of ventilators.
And I think we really sort of started right over here. We got a call very early on from Bill and the group. And this is incredible — what’s happened and what you’ve done.
With your help, not a single American who has needed a ventilator has been denied a ventilator. Not one. And as you remember, we took over empty cupboards. The cupboards were bare. And we got into the business of ventilators and testing and all of these other things.
Now we’ve done 14 million tests. The second country is at 3 million and less than 3 million — Germany, South Korea. And they’ve done a good job, but we’re at 14 million tests, and the tests are the best of all.
But on behalf of our entire nation, I want to say thank you very much. Thank you very much for doing a great job.
Driven by the love and sweat and devotion of everyone here today, we’re saving lives, we’re forging ahead, and, as of this week, the beating heart of the American auto industry is back open for business. That started right away, didn’t it? And it starts right now. And you have all those supply chains coming in; they’re going to come through. Because if they don’t come through, just build the product right here, okay? Because, you know, that can happen, too. But we heard that. It’s a big story that — we’re starting with the cars now, and it’s going to be a big success.
In addition to many wonderful UAW workers, we’re joined by Secretary Ben Carson, who’s done a fantastic job. Where’s Ben? Ben is here. Thank you, Ben. Where is he? Oh, there he is. Hi, Ben. Thank you, Ben. Thank you. (Applause.)
And a man who has done a fantastic job for Ford — although I’ll ask Bill about this later. I’ll just find out. I want to make sure for myself. But I know — based on results, I know. CEO Jim Hackett. Jim, thank you very much. (Applause.) The word is “yes,” Jim. The word is “great job.” Great job.
Plant manager Angela Weathers. Angela, thank you very much. (Applause.) That’s a big job. That’s a big job. Do you enjoy it? Yeah, great job. Fantastic. It’s a big — big deal.
And GE Healthcare U.S. and Canada president Everett Cunningham. Thank you, Everett. (Applause.) Thank you, Everett.
Before going further, let us send our love to all of the families that have been displaced by the flooding near Midland. I spoke to your governor this morning, and we’ve sent some tremendously talented people out here. We have FEMA and we have the Army Corps of Engineers, and they can do things that, frankly, nobody else can do. The Army Corps of Engineers, what they do — so they’re very good at rebuilding dams that are busted or blown up or, for whatever reason, bad things happen.
But Americans are praying for Central Michigan. We’re going to take care of your problem. The governor and I had a great conversation this morning. And at the appropriate time, I’ll go and see the area that we’ll be fixing. We’re going to help you out. We signed a emergency declaration very quickly — very, very quickly. And we’re going to help you out very quickly also.
In recent months, this state and this country have faced great challenges. Here in the Detroit area, you were hit hard by the virus — very, very hard in this area.
As one people, we hold in our hearts the precious memory of every person that we have lost, and we’ve lost too many. One is too many. We lost too many.
It came in from China, and it should have been stopped in China. They didn’t stop it. They should have stopped it.
And as one grateful nation, we proclaim, “God bless our healthcare workers.” They’ve done an incredible job. They’re like warriors. They’re like warriors. I want to thank all of the nurses and doctors. (Applause.)
Because of the virus, Ford was forced to stop automobile production for the first time since World War Two. That’s something. But you did not despair. Your company leadership called up the White House and asked the most American of all questions: “How can we help?” True. I said, “That’s nice. That’s very nice.”
Every one of the workers in this project volunteered to take part in the greatest industrialization and mobilization project that our society has done, the American people have done in our lifetimes.
The company founded by a man named Henry Ford — good bloodlines, good bloodlines, if you believe in that stuff. You got good blood. (Laughs.) They teamed up with the company founded by Thomas Edison — that’s General Electric. It’s good stuff. That’s good stuff. And you put it all together. They’re all looking down right now and they’d be very proud of what they see.
You began the production of 50,000 lifesaving ventilators, a number that, if you go back just two months, I would say –most people would say it would be impossible to believe. The media is back there and they would have said, a couple of months ago, the creation of that many ventilators would have been not a possible thing.
Every single one of these ventilators is made in the USA, with American heart, American hands, and American pride. Just as your great grandparents produced more than one Model T every minute, just as your grandmothers and grandfathers produced a B- — B-24. You did the B-24 bombers. I saw pictures in the back. That was quite a weapon. That was quite an incredible weapon — B-24 bomber.
And just as a Ford F-150 normally drives off the line every 52 seconds, you quickly mastered this complex new machine. A ventilator is a very complicated, delicate, big, expensive machine. One month ago, Ford had never built a single ventilator. And now you’re a world leader. That’s not bad. You adopted the designs of a company that was building just 10 a week, but a very high-quality ventilator. And very soon you’ll be producing one new ventilator every single minute.
It’s an absolute amazing achievement and you’re really helping now, beyond the country; you’re helping other countries throughout the world. We have 188 countries that are fighting this terrible enemy. And ventilators are something they could never — you can do cotton swabs, you can do all of the things. You can even do testing. But ventilators are a whole different lot. It’s very tough. Great job.
Thanks to you, we’ll stockpile over 100,000 new ventilators in the next few months. And I’ve offered over 14,000 to friends and allies all around the world, and they desperately need them. Just this week, I spoke to five countries. They call me — is it possible to get ventilators to them. And I’m sending them over.
I want to recognize just a few of the exceptional Americans who made this historic feat possible. Keith Pastorino is an electrician here in Rawsonville. Keith, please tell us what you’ve done, how you like it. Come on up. Let’s see, Keith. Oh, look at Keith. (Applause.)
Thank you, Keith. I would love to grab him and shake his hand, but I guess we can’t do that, can we?
MR. PASTORINO: (Laughs.) Well, on behalf of Ford and the UAW, welcome, Mr. President.
I’m Keith Pastorino. I’m an electrician. When I first heard the news that my plant was going to be building ventilators, it only took me a minute to get a hold of my UAW. And then I decided that this was my opportunity to serve my country.
So, on the first day as a volunteer, we went full speed, seven days a week, 12 hours a shift. I would go home sore, bruised, had blisters, was bleeding, had trouble sleeping just — just because of the pains of that day. But I kept coming back because this is a great nation.
And I couldn’t say that I’d be more proud of my coworkers for their efforts and their sacrifices to build these fine Ford ventilators, respirators, face masks and face shields.
Thank you. This has been an absolute honor and a blessing. And God bless you, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Keith. (Applause.) Thank you. Great job. Great people.
We’re also joined by Gary Brabant, a quality technician. Gary — come on up, Gary. (Applause.) Thanks, Gary.
MR. BRABANT: Good afternoon. Thank you, President Trump, for the honor to tell my story. My name is Gary Brabant, and I’m a fourth-generation Ford Motor Company employee.
My grandfathers worked for Ford Motor Company during World War Two. And my father retired from Rawsonville after 41 years. I always knew growing up I wanted to work for Ford.
I am very, very proud of the part — of the part — of the ventilator project and the amazing job done by Ford and the UAW team here.
I had anxiety when I received the call to volunteer. I didn’t want to get sick or take it home to my family. However, upon arriving here on the first day, I felt safe due to the new policies and procedures put forth by our UAW health and safety team.
It’s a great feeling to know everything we are doing here and each assembly we make is saving somebody’s life.
Thank you, Mr. President, and God bless America. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you, Gary. (Applause.) Thank you, Gary, very much.
With us, as well, is Adrian Price, who has helped lead this effort as one of Ford’s top engineers — highly respected. Come on up. Please, Adrian. (Applause.)
MR. PRICE: Thank you, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you.
MR. PRICE: Really, thank you for the opportunity to represent my friends and colleagues who’ve been involved in project Apollo.
I’m honored to be part of a team that, over the last few weeks, has been able to produce more than 17 million of these face shields, 13 million surgical masks, 32,000 pressurized air purifying respirators, and here at the Rawson facili- — the Rawsonville facility, produce a ventilator every 60 seconds.
These feats are a testament to the skills and capabilities of the men and women at Ford Motor Company, and our UAW and other partners who have come together to do what we could do to support the battle against COVID-19. Ford Motor Company and its employees are always prepared to step up and do the right thing to support those in need, but most particularly in times of significant national crisis.
I believe these acts are part of the DNA of our company and are inspired by both the Ford family and our continuing history of service. Personally, I’m proud to be playing a part in supporting the brave men and women who are on the frontline every day putting themselves at risk to help others.
And as I stand here today, surrounded by these awesome American-made cars, SUVs, and beautiful trucks, I’m so pleased that our facilities and dealerships are safely in operation and serving the needs of our current, and maybe future, Ford and Lincoln customers.
Thank you, Mr. President. (Laughter and applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: I bought plenty of them. I bought plenty of them. Thank you, Adrian. Yep, I have a lot of those Lincolns. That’s great. Thank you very much.
The global pandemic has proven once and for all that to be a strong nation, America must be a manufacturing nation. We’re bringing it back. Six hundred thousand jobs. The previous administration said, “Manufacturing, we’re not doing that. It’s gone from this country.” They were wrong. Six hundred thousand jobs — until we had to turn it off. And now we’re going to turn it back on like never before. You’ll see numbers that you didn’t even see the last time; we’re going to rebuild it quickly. It’s going to happen very quickly.
We’re already seeing indications of that. Larry Kudlow gave some numbers that were really inspiring this morning, based on what we’re hearing and seeing.
True national independence requires economic independence. From day one, I’ve been fighting to bring back our jobs from China and many other countries. Today, I’m declaring a simple but vital national goal: The United States will be the world’s premier pharmacy, drugstore, and medical manufacturer. We’re bringing our medicines back — (applause) — and many other things, too.
We must produce critical equipment, supplies pharmaceuticals, technologies for ourselves. We cannot rely on foreign nations to take care of us, especially in times of difficulty.
In previous decades, politicians shipped away our jobs, outsourced our supply chains, and offshored our industries. They sent them abroad and we’re bringing them back. And we’ve been doing that long before this crisis. We’re bringing them back. That’s why we have so many plants being built all over the United States that make a beautiful product called cars. Bringing them back. You see it.
I told Prime Minister Abe of Japan, I said, “You got to — Shinzo, you got to get them back. Got to…” We have many Japanese companies now building car companies here. I said, “You got to bring them back.” We’ve had deficits with all of these countries for years and years and years. They were ripping us left and right. We had no idea. We had no leader that understood what the hell was happening, but now you do. I said, “You got to bring them back.”
We made a great deal with South Korea. We made a great deal. Japan — it’ll be $40 billion Japan is putting into the United States, not to mention all of the plants that they’re building. The South Korea deal was a terrible deal and we made it good. Hillary Clinton actually made that deal. She said, “It’s going to produce 250,000 jobs.” And she was right; it produced 250,000 jobs for South Korea, not for us. Wasn’t too good, was it?
But we are bringing it all back to our country, and it started long before this happened. And maybe that’s one of the reasons this happened. Maybe people weren’t so thrilled with what was going on. But we had the greatest year in the history of our country. We’re going to have it again very soon.
In this administration, we know that it matters where someone and something — where someone works on something or where something is made. As we’ve seen today, companies like your great Ford and workers like you are a national treasure. I consider Ford to be a national treasure. I consider you to be a national treasure — the talent — because that talent and culture and commitment to winning are irreplaceable.
Your patriotism cannot be outsourced. Your 117 years of incredible manufacturing heritage cannot be replicated anywhere else in the world. The talent — I see the talent. I know what talent is. I understand your world, and I understand your business. That’s why in my administration we live by two simple rules: Buy American and hire American. (Applause.)
And we have another rule that you may have heard on occasion. It’s called “America First.” We didn’t have America first; we had America last under previous presidents. They were more concerned with the world than they were concerned with their own country.
My first week in office, I withdrew from the job-wrecking Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would have destroyed the auto industry.
I don’t know, I didn’t — I never asked you about that, Bill. I mean, I think you agree. Oh, you do? Would you please stand up and just nod that you agree? That’s — (laughter) — your industry, Bill, would have been destroyed had that deal gone through. And not only yours, by the way. But other countries would have been very happy. So I don’t know. I don’t know how the hell these unions aren’t endorsing Trump instead of the standard Democrat — a Democrat that doesn’t even know where he is.
We renegotiated the catastrophic deal with South Korea to preserve the protective tariff on foreign-made pickup trucks. You know, the “chicken tax,” they call it. Right? You know what the chicken tax is? The most profitable thing you have. You know why? Because of the chicken tax. That was expiring a year ago, and I got it extended. Because of that tax, it’s one of the most profitable products. You live for that product, right?
I kept my promise to replace the NAFTA disaster with the brand-new USMCA, which is a fantastic deal for our country. Tough new requirements under the USMCA ensure more cars to be built at American plants by American labor — and even labor endorsed it. But, you know, the big thing is: You were losing all of your car indus- — you weren’t going to have a car industry left. Now people aren’t going to be moving back to Mexico, they’re not going to be moving back, and you’re going to have it the other way.
At the same time, we preserve our relationship. Mexico has actually been very nice. Our border is the strongest it’s ever been. We’re up to over 200 miles of brand-new, beautiful border wall. And that 200 miles is pristine. Nobody comes through. This is a serious wall. It’s a serious wall. And it’s incredible what we’ve done there, too. We had the best — among the best months we’ve ever had. And now, when somebody comes across, we bring them back. We don’t go through five years of litigation.
In the other days — or the older days — not so long ago, if they stepped a foot into our country, they ended up — you had to be Perry Mason. You’d end up in a court case. And it took years. You’d release them into the country, by law, and then you’d say, “Come back in five years for your trial.” And only the very stupid people came back. About 2 percent. They didn’t come back. Why should they come back? They were released into our country. We don’t do that. We don’t do that. And we want people coming into our country, but we want them to come in through merit, and we want them to come in legally. That’s very important.
I’ll continue to fight for U.S. autoworkers as we rebuild our economic strength. Our strategy for a phased and responsible reopening protects those lives — those American lives, those high-risk American lives — from the virus, while allowing those at lower risk, such as young, healthy people — where they just have a much, much lower risk — we’ve learned a lot. If you’re a certain age, you have a problem with diabetes or you have a problem with your heart, you’re a prime suspect for this horrible disease. It’s a — it’s a terrible thing.
So we’ve learned that young people do very well. Very well. Incredibly well. Older people — especially older people that have problems, they don’t do well at all. So we have to protect those people. And we want to get everybody now safely back to work. And we’re going to do that.
I spoke today about our churches. Our churches are closed. And I said to CDC — I had a great conversation. I said, “Our people want to go back to church on Sundays.” And our churches want to take care of their parishioners, their people that go to worship. And you’re going to see something come out very soon about opening up our churches.
A permanent lockdown is not a strategy for a healthy state or a healthy country. Our country wasn’t meant to be shut down. We did the right thing, but now it’s time to open it up. A never-ending lockdown would invite a public health calamity. To protect the health of our people, we must have a functioning economy. And as I said, and I’ll say it 100 times, we’re going to have an incredible year next year, right at the beginning. Even our fourth quarter is going to be very good. There’s a tremendous pent-up demand, and that includes for your cars.
Americans who need and want to return to work should not be vilified; they should be supported. Unlike many politicians and journalists, for those who earn a living with their own two hands, working remotely is just not an option. You don’t have the option of doing that. Our plan emphasizes safety and protection for returning employees.
I want to commend Ford, along with General Motors, General Electric, Fiat Chrysler, and so many other companies — a lot of them in this area — for blazing a trail to safely restart America’s economic engines. You are demonstrating that we can open our country while taking precautions like social distancing, daily medical screenings, strict hygiene. You can get tremendous numbers of very quick temperature checks. Who ever heard? They aim a camera right there, and two seconds later they tell you your temperature more accurately than the old days, where you put it under your tongue for two and a half minutes. This is a little better. But you get temperature checks.
And I want to thank you all for leading America back to work. You look at states like Florida, Georgia, and many others, where the numbers have actually gone down. They’re open, but their numbers are going down and very substantially down. With your help and our policies, this country is poised for an epic comeback. This is going to be an incredible comeback. Watch. It’s already happening.
Within the next year, we are going to be exceeding any expectation. And I’ve had a good gut feeling about a lot of things, including running for President. I said, “I think I could win.” And I guess I was right.
Everyone here today — and, by the way, I think we’re going to do better the second time. And it’s very important that we win the second time or everything that we’ve done, including manufacturing, jobs, all of this — it’s going to be not in a very good position.
Everyone here today is the heir to a majestic and noble tradition. You walk in the footsteps of those who built the Motor City in the 1920s and ‘30s, who stocked the arsenal of democracy in the 1940s, and who set the standard for automotive safety and style in the 1950s and ‘60s and beyond, and even today. Bill was showing me some of those cars. It’s incredible. I wanted to buy one, and then I heard the price. I said, “Forget it.” I said, “I’ll use one on occasion.” Right? But what a — what a car that is, huh? What a car.
Our friends and allies marveled at these triumphs of American industry, and our enemies learned that nothing can stop the strength and power and grit of the American worker. Nothing. Just like generations of Michigan manufacturers before you, each of you has done your best for America in its time of need. You love your country. You love your country so much.
Now you have a critical role to play in forging a new legacy of American greatness that will inspire and endure for generations to come. It’s a very important time in our country’s history, in our country’s life.
Because of you, the Ford name will forever stand as a symbol of American excellence, innovation, quality, and craftsmanship. And because of you, America will be strong and healthy and prosperous and free for many, many decades to come.
I want to say very powerfully, very strongly: God bless you all. God bless America. I’m proud to be here. I’m proud to be with Ford. Bill, thank you very much. Everyone, thank you very much. We’ll be back. We’ll see you a lot. Good luck. John James, thank you for being here. We’re going to have a great senator. John James. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you. (Applause.)
It is quite remarkable how quickly the senate can move on a confirmation vote when there is a heavy dose of self-preservation in play. Only two days after the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) voted to advance the nomination of John Ratcliffe as Director of National Intelligence (DNI), the full senate takes up the nomination and ‘presto’… Ratcliffe is confirmed. [Vote Tally Here] Huh, funny that.
Perhaps another way to look at it…. two days after the SSCI cried uncle in an attempt to rid themselves of the atomic sledgehammer of transparently perpetual sunlight known as Ric Grenell, Senate Leader Mitch McConnell rushed the quick dispatch.
Seriously, it’s a little unfair to cast a great man like John Ratcliffe as ‘less than’, because he truly is not less than anyone; however, boy howdy the deep state couldn’t get rid of their nemesis Richard “Ric” Genell quickly enough.
Mr. Grenell quietly brought more declassified sunlight upon the swamp than decades of prior transparency efforts; and he did it with a very deliberate flair, quite fun.
DNI John Ratcliffe will do an excellent job, and I seriously doubt this is the last we have seen of the Mr. Grenell.
Promoting an economic reopening, President Trump travels to Michigan today and tours the Ford Rawsonville Components Plant in Ypsilanti. The president is expected to deliver remarks to the workers and audience at 3:20pm ET.
Chopper pressers are the best pressers. Earlier today President Trump held an impromptu press availability as he departed the White House for a trip to Michigan. [Video Below Transcript ADDED]
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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. So, we have a lot of good things going. We just had a meeting with Mitch McConnell and the group. And we’re working on a — a package of very positive things. We’re getting some very good numbers. It looks like the numbers are going to be very good into the future. We’re going to be very strong, starting with our transition period, which will be probably June — June, July. I think you’re going to see some very good numbers coming out. And next year is going to be an incredible economic year for this country. One of our best.
Always paying respects to the people that have lost their lives. We always have to remember that: the people that have lost their lives.
Do you have any questions? Please.
Q Mr. President, where are you on funding to Michigan? A lot of people are concerned. They’re flooded out. They said that’s the last thing they need is for a threat to come from the President.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we’re looking at the floods. We have our people from the Army Corps of Engineers there. We have FEMA there. I spoke with the governor, Governor Whitmer, yesterday, and we have a very good understanding. But we’ve moved our best people into Michigan and our most talented engineers, designers, the people from the Army Corps of Engineers. And they do these things better than probably anyone — anyone in the world.
Q What about the funding, though, that you threatened to take away the federal funding?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we’ll take a look. No, we’ll take a look. That was unrelated to that.
Q Can you explain why you’re pulling out of the Open Skies Treaty?
THE PRESIDENT: Russia and us have developed a very good relationship. As you know, we worked on the oil problem together. I think we have a very good relationship with Russia. But Russia didn’t adhere to the treaty, so until they adhere, we will pull out. But there’s a very good chance we’ll make a new agreement or do something to put that agreement back together.
But whenever there’s an agreement that another party doesn’t agree to — you know, we have many of those agreements around the world, where it’s a two-party agreement, but they don’t adhere to it and we do. When we have things like that, we pull out also. That’s why, with the arms treaties, if you look at the arms treaties, we’re probably going to make a deal with Russia on arms treaty. And China will be maybe included in that. We’ll see what happens.
But we have a lot of things. But when we have an agreement, when we have a treaty, and the other side doesn’t adhere to it — in many cases, they’re old treaties, old agreements — then we pull out also.
So I think what’s going to happen is we’re going to pull out and they’re going to come back and want to make a deal. We’ve had a very good relationship lately with Russia. And you can see that with respect to oil and what’s happening with oil.
Q What do you think about Michael Cohen getting out of jail today? He’s home now.
THE PRESIDENT: I didn’t know that.
Q He’s home. What do you think about that?
THE PRESIDENT: I didn’t know it. Nope. I didn’t know it.
Q Do you have a reaction?
Q Isn’t that going to increase tensions with Russia, though, right when you want to make things better?
THE PRESIDENT: Say it?
Q Isn’t this withdrawal going to make things be- — worse with Russia? Increase tensions?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I think that we’re going to have a very good relationship with Russia. I think that if you look at what happened with oil, where Russia, Saudi Arabia, and us got together, and we saved in our country millions of energy jobs. And you see oil now is solidifying. So it’s the best of all worlds. We’re saving the energy jobs but our drivers have a very low gasoline price.
Q Are you going to wear a mask today at the Ford plant?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I don’t know. We’re going to look at it. A lot of people have asked me that question. I want to get our country back to normal. I want to normalize.
One of the other things I want to do is get the churches open. The churches are not being treated with respect by a lot of the Democrat governors. I want to get our churches open. And we’re going to take a very strong position on that very soon.
Q What about mosques, Mr. President? What about mosques? The Muslims are going to be celebrating the end of Ramadan soon. What about mosques?
THE PRESIDENT: Mosques too, yeah. Including mosques.
Q Do you have any messages for —
THE PRESIDENT: Including mosques.
Q Do you have any messages for the Muslims who will be celebrating the end of Ramadan?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I wish them well — very well.
Go ahead.
Q Can you talk about the AstraZeneca award? A billion dollars for 400 million doses of a potential new vaccine. How confident are you that one will be ready by the fall?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think we have a lot of — you have AstraZeneca, which is a great company, and you have others, Johnson & Johnson. We have a lot of things happening on the vaccine front, on the therapeutic front. If you look at therapeutically, we’re doing great. And on the cure front — which is the next step — I think we have tremendous things. That announcement, I heard, came out this morning. That’s a very positive announcement in addition to all of the other announcements.
We are so far ahead of where people thought we’d be. But therapeutically, it’s very interesting what’s going on — and cure. So you’re going to have a lot big announcements over the next week or two.
Q Sir, you said the funding to Michigan was another issue not related to the flood. Can you just assure people that are concerned you’re going to hold funding?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we’re helping Michigan with their flood, and we have the people to do it.
Q But what about the funding though? You said federal funding for the mail-in voting.
THE PRESIDENT: We don’t want them to do mail-in ballots because it’s going to lead to total election fraud. So we don’t want them to do mail-in ballots. We don’t want anyone to do mail-in ballots.
Now, if somebody has to mail it in because they’re sick or, by the way, because they live in the White House and they have to vote in Florida and they won’t be in Florida — if there’s a reason for it, that’s okay. If there’s a reason. But if there’s not — we don’t want — we don’t to take any chances with fraud in our elections.
Q The Chinese Parliament is poised to pass a national security law cracking down on Hong Kong. Are you aware of this? What’s your reaction?
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t know what it is because nobody knows yet. If it happens, we’ll address that issue very strongly.
Q What about your plan for G7, Mr. President?
THE PRESIDENT: So it looks like G7 may be on because we’ve done well. We’re ahead of schedule in terms of our country, and some of the other countries are doing very well. It looks like G7 will be on. A full G7. And we’ll be announcing something probably early next week.
Q Will it be June 10th? And how many world leaders have agreed?
THE PRESIDENT: I can’t hear you. You have your mask on. I can’t hear a word you’re —
Q How many world leaders have agreed to your June 10th plan?
THE PRESIDENT: We’ll be talking to you about it.
Q Sir, how long do you expect take hydroxychloroquine?
THE PRESIDENT: I think it’s another day. I had a two-week regimen of hydroxychloroquine. And I’ve taken it, I think, just about two weeks. I think it’s another day. And I’m still here. I’m still here. And I tested very positively in a — in another sense.
So, this morning —
Q Negatively?
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. I tested positively toward negative, right? So, no, I tested perfectly this morning, meaning — meaning I tested negative.
Q Have you taken the antibody test yet?
THE PRESIDENT: But that’s a way of saying it: positively toward the negative.
Q Have you taken the antibody test yet, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I have not.
Q Columbia University put out a report in The New York Times today. It said 36,000 people would’ve been saved if you guys did social distancing measures just one week earlier. Do you believe that? What’s your reaction to that?
THE PRESIDENT: I was so early. I was earlier than anybody thought. I put a ban on people coming in from China. Everybody fought me on that. They didn’t want it. Nancy Pelosi, a month later, was dancing in the streets of San Francisco in Chinatown so that people wouldn’t believe what’s happening. And I don’t even blame that. But I was way early.
Columbia is an institution that’s very liberal. It’s a — I think it’s a just a political hit job, if you want to know the truth.
Q So, do you want to have the G7 here at the White House or Camp David or what?
THE PRESIDENT: We’re going to have it probably at the White House and maybe a little combination at Camp David. But primarily at the White House. So if we do the G7, when that all comes together, probably it will be in D.C., at the White House. Okay? But there could be a piece of it at Camp David, which is nearby.
Q Are you taking antibody plasma?
Q Back on Open Skies, have you talked to any allies —
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.
Q — about this?
THE PRESIDENT: So, again, our relationship with Russia has improved greatly, especially since the Russian hoax happened — has been proven totally false and illegal what they did. They — this was an illegal hoax and they got caught. They got caught doing a lot of bad things. So let’s see how that turns out.
But our relationship with Russia has come a long way in the last few months. I think that the Open Sky will all work out. But right now, when you have an agreement, and the other side doesn’t adhere to the agreement, we’re not going to adhere to it either. But I think something very positive will work out.
Q Are you going to go to the launch on Wednesday in Florida?
THE PRESIDENT: What?
Q The launch — the rocket launch on Wednesday in Florida?
THE PRESIDENT: I’m thinking about going. That’ll be next week to the rocket launch. I hope you’re all going to join me. I’d like to put you on the rocket, get rid of you for a while. (Laughter.)
Earlier today President Trump held a cabinet meeting to discuss ongoing COVID-19 mitigation efforts and the ongoing policies to reopen the U.S. economy. The presentation included powerful remarks from Assistant HHS Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Dr. Eli McCance-Katz. [Video and Transcript Below]
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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, everybody. Please. So, welcome to our Cabinet meeting. And every member of my Cabinet is working tirelessly to defeat the invisible enemy. That should have never happened to our country. It should have never happened to the world. It’s a disgrace. It could have been stopped at the source, but they decided not to do that.
But we’re going to safely reopen our country and our economy, and it’s happening very rapidly. And it’s happening, interestingly, where numbers are actually going down; you look at Florida, the state of Florida. Done a great job. You look at Georgia, you look at others — they’re open. And some are doing extremely well, far beyond what people thought.
And the numbers are going down. The numbers that we have been talking about for the last two months, they’re actually going down. So it’s really terrific.
In our drive to crush the virus, the U.S. has completed nearly 12 million tests. And that test — that number today is almost 14 million. Nobody is close. Germany would be second with approximately 10 million less than us. And we also have the best tests. South Korea is doing very well, but we’re at 14 million, and they’re at numbers that are very small by comparison.
What has been done with testing, what’s been done with ventilators, what’s been done with the distribution of product has been incredible. We’ve made a lot of governors look very good. We’ve actually made all of the governors look very good. Some have done a good job, but we’ve made them all look very good. We got them equipment, and we got them their gowns and their ventilators and their tests like nobody would have thought possible.
Vaccines are moving quickly into phase one and phase two trials, and trials of dozens of therapies and cures are underway. And we’re making tremendous strides with therapies, cures, and vaccines. I think we’re way ahead of schedule.
And you probably heard: Logistically, we have our military engaged. And as soon as we have whatever it is that we’re going to have, whether it’s therapeutic or vaccine, it will be distributed very rapidly. Our military is ready to go. They can deploy hundreds of thousands of men and women a day. And now what they’re going to be doing is they’re going to be doing the vaccine, which we are geared up for even before we have it. But the chances of us having it are extraordinary.
Secretary Azar will update us on all that we’re doing to safeguard Americans. He’ll be talking in a second.
To protect our people and defeat the virus, we must also defend the health of our nation’s economy. Secretary Mnuchin will report on the economic recovery efforts and the good numbers that are being produced ahead of schedule.
Secretary Carson will update us on the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council. And, Ben, you’ve done a fantastic job. We appreciate it. He’s looked at HUD much differently than people that would have been in the pure real estate business, and he has a way of seeing things that’s different and really good for our country. And Ben is working on — very hard — different plans to restore health and prosperity to disadvantaged and minority communities, and that’s really working out well.
One of the things we’re very proud of is Opportunity Zones. Tim Scott of South Carolina came to me with a proposal, and few people understand how successful the Opportunity Zones have been. It’s a great tribute to Tim and to others in the Senate that helped us with that.
The pandemic has shown once again the vital importance of economic independence and bringing supply chains back from China and other countries. I probably got elected — one of the primary reasons was that. “Make America Great Again,” “America First” — call it whatever you want. But we went way out of bounds; we build a car and we go to 12 countries to build a car. I want to build a car from one country: We make the parts.
To achieve this goal, we’ve slashed red tape and bureaucracy and unleashed the largest industrial mobilization since World War Two, especially when it comes to big things like a ventilator. It’s a very big, clumsy, highly sophisticated product. And we have now assembly lines. We’re the talk of the world. We’re supplying them to other countries. We’re helping other countries that are going through this plague and they’re never going to be able to do ventilators.
So we are — it’s really been an incredible thing what’s happened. It’s the biggest mobilization since World War Two. And we’re fighting for the livelihoods of American workers, and we must continue to cut through every piece of red tape that stands in our way. And that’s why this is such an exciting meeting — beyond being a Cabinet meeting, which is always good — because with millions of Americans forced out of work by the virus, it’s more important than ever to remove burdens that destroy American jobs.
In a few minutes, I will sign an executive order instructing federal agencies to use any and all authority to waive, suspend, and eliminate unnecessary regulations that impede economic recovery. And we want to leave it that way. We want to leave it that way. In some cases, we won’t be able to, but in other cases, we will.
And you’ve heard me say many times — I’ve said and I’ve said it very strongly that regulations — we’ve done more regulation cutting than any President in history, whether they’re there for four years, eight years, or, in one case, more. We’ve done more regulation cutting — I don’t mean just in a year or two years. I mean in the three and a half years that we’ve been here, we’ve cut far more regulations by a factor of a lot than any other administration, any other presidency. So that’s really something.
I’m directing agencies to review the hundreds of regulations we’ve already suspended in response to the virus and make these suspensions permanent where possible. I’m also instructing agencies to use the emergency authorities to speed up regulation cuts or new rules that will create jobs and prosperity and get rid of unnecessary rules and regulations.
We had cases where it would take 20 years to build a highway. You’d have to go through various agencies to get the same permit. I lived with it in the private sector, so I know it better than anybody, where you’d go years and years and years to build a simple roadway or a simple building, and it would end up costing an absolute fortune — many, many times what it should cost.
And it would take years before you could even seek final approval — 5 years, 7 years, 20 years, 21 years. A certain highway built recently — a small highway; I would call it a road — 21 years to get it approved. And then, by the time they get it approved, it costs 100 times more, in some — numbers that you wouldn’t even believe. We’re getting rid of all of that.
We’re down now, on roads — working with Elaine and the Department of Transportation, we’re down to a two-year period. We want to see if we can do better. We have roads in there for 18, 17, 20, 21 years, over the years. I’m not blaming Elaine for that. I’m just saying, over the years, there have been roads that have gone through a process for many years — roads and highways.
So we’re going to be getting it down to a year. And maybe it’s not going to get passed for environmental reasons or safety reasons, but we’re going to know quickly. But if it does pass, it’s going to happen fast.
Acting OMB Director — soon to be permanent director — where’s Russ? Did you hear what I said? “Soon to be permanent director.” (Laughter.) Okay? That’s a big statement. Some people would say that’s big news. He’s done a fantastic job, so congratulations. But we have to get them to approve but — good. (Applause.) We’ll give you a congratulations just prior to approval, right? So you’re doing great. Thank you very much.
So Acting OMB director Russ Vought will present details on this effort, and we’ll go into that. So Russ has done a great job on exactly what we’re — he used to come into my office and he’d say, “I think we can cut a lot of different things, in terms of regulation.” And, Russ, I think also, very importantly, we’ll have a better product. It’s actually going to give us a better result. And we’re adhering to environmental — the environmental impact studies and all of the other things we have to do to get these permits. But — so, Russ Vought, thank you very much.
I want to once again thank every member of the Cabinet for your commitment to helping our nation reopen, to recover and rebuild. I’d like to now ask a man who has done a fantastic job as the head of the task force — he’s worked — literally, I mean, I think literally 24 hours a day, sometimes, to make sure everything has gone well.
Today we had a really great article by Rich Lowry, who talked about the tremendous job that we’ve done in terms of the task force, in terms of the coronavirus, and getting things going and getting people what they need — whether it’s ventilators, testing, or many other things. And I appreciated that article very much because there’s been a very false narrative. People have no idea what an incredible job the people in federal government have done. And that includes generals and admirals and lots of others.
So I want to thank Mike Pence for the great job you’ve done, Mike. And, please, say a few words.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you, Mr. President. And I think everyone around this Cabinet knows that, from the first day of this administration, you’ve made it clear that you have no higher priority than the safety and security of the American people.
In January, when you took the unprecedented action of suspending all travel from China, before there was a single case of community transmission in the United States, it is inarguable, Mr. President, that your decision bought us a critical amount of time to stand up a national response all across this country.
At the same time, in January, you stood up the White House Coronavirus Task Force. And over the course of February, you began to suspend more travel, establish screening at more than 11 airports around the United States — again with a priority of protecting the health and safety of the American people.
And from the first day, Mr. President, that you asked me to lead the White House Coronavirus Task Force, we have — we have focused on the health of the American people.
It would be on March 15th, at your direction, that we released the — the White House Coronavirus Guidelines for America. We asked a lot of the American people and the American people responded. Fifteen days would become forty-five days, and in that time it was our objective, Mr. President, as you made clear, to save lives, to slow the spread, to flatten the curve. And because of what the American people did, because of the direction that you gave, and all the dedicated members at HHS and FEMA and all of those around this table who served on the task force, because of the partnership that you forged with every governor of both political parties across the country, we’ve made great progress.
That being said, Mr. President, I know that you believe, as we all do, that one life lost is too many. And — and we grieve today for the loss of more than 90,000 Americans to the coronavirus. At a time like this — the first Cabinet meeting that we have had since the advent of this epidemic — it’s important to remember that when we asked the American people to make all of those sacrifices, the estimates before you were that if we did nothing, we could lose between 1 million and 2.2 million American lives. And in fact, even by taking the steps that we took, the estimates were still clear that even if we flattened the curve that we could still lose 100,000 to 240,000 Americans.
And so, while we grieve the loss of those more than 90,000 Americans — and their families are on our hearts today — we recognize — we recognize the progress that we have made.
Among the progress that we made, Mr. President, in flattening the curve and slowing the spread was preserving, as you directed, the capacity of our healthcare system. One of the great concerns that we had early on was that our healthcare system, our hospitals would be overwhelmed by the coronavirus. That did not occur, Mr. President. Truth is, as you’ve reflected many times, because of the ingenuity of the American people, because of our partnership with states, because of a great logistics team that worked with the task force, no American who has needed a ventilator was ever denied a ventilator in the United States. It is an extraordinary accomplishment.
And the report that I received today is that the National Stockpile now has more than 15,000 ventilators. And because of the public-private partnerships that you’ve forged, we’ll actually see American companies manufacture more than 110,000 ventilators in 100 days.
Over 13 billion supplies and critical PPE were also delivered to doctors and nurses and first responders and to Americans on the frontlines of this pandemic.
And on the subject of testing, Mr. President, when you tapped me to lead this task force, we had fully done, under the old system of public labs — we had fully done only 8,400 coronavirus tests at the end of February. But as you just reflected, because of the public-private partnership that you formed with commercial labs across the country, we’ve now performed nearly 12 million coronavirus tests, and more than 400,000 in a single day this past weekend.
And, Mr. President, as I’ll share with the team, as we’re increasing testing, the good news to Americans is, nevertheless, cases are going down. You reflected on that in your visit to the Capitol today and in your opening remarks. And in that, I hope — despite the heartbreak and the hardship that we have all endured, I hope the American people can sense that they’ve made progress. That as we continue to scale testing all across the country, our team — with Admiral Giroir at the helm, and FEMA at the helm — estimates that we’ll be able to conduct maybe 40- to 50 million tests a month by this September. And even as testing is expanding across the country, we’re seeing cases coming down, and that’s a tribute to the American people.
But it’s not just been a health of the American people that’s been challenged, Mr. President. As you rightly observed, businesses large and small who have had to shutter their operations — we heard from restaurant owners earlier this week. And with the great work of our Secretary of the Treasury and your leadership, Mr. President, $188 billion in loans have been approved to small businesses, nearly $583 million have been awarded through community health centers to all 50 states. We have been there at the point of the need for businesses large and small. We have been there for vulnerable populations. And at your direction, Mr. President, we’ll continue to lean forward in that fight.
The action that you’re taking today with signing the executive order is going to make it even more possible for us to — to build this economy back again for the American people. And it was in that spirit that one month ago, Mr. President, as I close, you directed the White House Coronavirus Task Force to release guidelines to open up America again.
And I’m proud to report to the Cabinet today that our best information is that all 50 states, as of today, are partially reopening their economies, and the American people are responding and breathing that free air again. They’re doing it responsibly. They’re — they’re enjoying the opportunity to be out; in many states, to enjoy restaurants, businesses opening back up. The big three automakers went back to work this last Monday in Ben Carson’s hometown of Detroit. And America is on its way back through a great, great season of hardship. It’s a testament to the resilience of the American people.
So, Mr. President, you charged the White House Coronavirus Task Force to have one mission and that was save lives, to have one team and that was to forge relationships all across the country. And because of your leadership, because of the great work of this Cabinet, because of governors around the country, but mostly because of our incredible healthcare workers and the cooperation of the American people, we’ve slowed the spread, we’ve flattened the curve, and we are reopening America.
And, Mr. President, I’m proud to report to you that we’re on our way. And I promise you, this entire team is going to continue to work with governors around the country, at your direction, until we bring the American economy all the way back, as you often say, “bigger and better than ever before.”
So thank you, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Mike. And again, thank you very much for doing a great job.
So I’m going to sign this now, and then Ben and Steve will speak, and then we’ll go around the room a little bit, and we’ll say what we want.
I’d like to congratulate Rick Grenell for doing such a fantastic job as Acting — I don’t think you want to be permanent, so I think you’re very happy to be Acting. But what a job. I think you’ll go down as the all-time great Acting ever, at any position. So thank you very much, Rick. Thank you very much. (Applause.) Would you like to say something? Go ahead, please.
MR. GRENELL: Sure. I would just say greetings from an intel community that is very interested in providing policymakers, everybody around this table, with raw intelligence that is not politicized in any possible way.
And I have to tell you, Mr. President, that I have heard from hundreds of members of the current intel community who are extremely pleased with transparency of their work. And that’s what they’re shooting for. That’s what they want to provide to policymakers — is information that is not politicized by politicians in any way, on any side of the aisle, but to be able to protect their intelligence estimates — we all know that they’re estimates — and they’re proud to give them when not manipulated by others.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we appreciate your great work. Thank you, Rick, very much.
MR. GRENELL: Thank you, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: I’m going to sign this now. And so this is regulations are going to be cut. And the potential is that you’re going to find regulations that nobody has ever thought of before because you’re going to be doing it yourselves. And this gives you great authority to cut regulations. So we’ve already had the record by a lot. It’s not even close. But you’ll have a chance to cut regulations.
When I look at EPA sitting here and I look at the Veterans sitting here and I look at all of the different people — Homeland Security, Chad — I look at all of the great talent around this table, you’ll have a right to do something that nobody would ever have thought you would have the right to do that.
And so I just want you to go to town and do it right. Do it proper. Make sure everything is safe and make sure it’s environmentally good, for those of you that are in that category, but it’s very, very important. Elaine, you can do things that nobody would believe in your department: Department of Transportation.
So, good luck. And I’m signing this. It gives you tremendous power to cut regulation.
(The executive order is signed.)
Here you go, Ben. Here, take that. (Applause.) Okay, Ben, would you like to say something please?
SECRETARY CARSON: Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. President. And a big thank-you to all the Cabinet members. Almost everybody has been deeply involved in the refocusing of the Opportunity and Revitalization Council. And Jared and Christian and Brooke also big, big help.
Just as was done during the Greatest Generation, many sectors of our society are being reconfigured to meet the singular goal of winning our war against this invisible enemy. Companies that made bedding linen are now making masks, and plants that produce vehicles are now producing ventilators. I worked at some of those plants growing up in Detroit.
And now the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council, which was formed by you to help long-forgotten communities achieve economic opportunity will refocus and expand to help America’s hardest-hit communities and achieve economic recovery, overcome health disparities, and thrive through educational advancement — education being the ticket. It doesn’t matter where you came from. If you get a good education, you can write your own ticket.
Since your historic Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, billions of dollars from the private sector have been invested in these designated Opportunity Zones, which are home to nearly 35 million people. Through this initiative, we’ve fostered partnerships between people who seldom sit down together. We’re talking about business leaders, community leaders, faith-based leaders, housing advocates, investors, builders, state and local and federal officials.
The Revitalization Council, which I have the privilege to chair, alongside our executive director Scott Turner, who’s here in this room somewhere — oh, there he is over there, okay — has played a big role in the success, identifying more than 270 different federal actions to support and increase investment in Opportunity Zones through things like grant preference points, loan qualifications, reduced fees, eligibility criteria, modifications, and a number of other incentives.
And at your direction, we’re now taking our considerable capacity to discover opportunity and drive recovery in disadvantaged and minority communities that are disproportionately affected by COVID-19.
Based on our work and analysis, the Revitalization Council is identifying diverse policy approaches in areas including housing, education, technology, broadband, workforce, entrepreneurship, health, and long-term community development. And under your leadership, this administration has shined a light on the forgotten men and women whose job prospects and health disparities are often hidden in the shadows.
Mr. President, you’ve been a champion for all Americans, especially our low-income and minority communities. And we’re committed to continuing — continuing your work not only to restore, but to advance the historic gains and prosperity many enjoyed before this global epidemic. Your council will not only continue its focus to bring more jobs and better jobs, but it will also expand to better fortify public health services that will improve medical and social health outcomes and uplift our most distressed communities.
The American people will come out the other side of this crisis stronger and more determined than ever. Thanks to the authority you have vested in the Revitalization Council, we will leverage these powers to heal America’s hardest-hit communities and return to prosperity as safely and swiftly as possible. And thank you for not giving in to the naysayers and to the people who use fear to control people, and instead giving people hope not with just your words, but with your actions. Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much, Ben.
You know, I had to run against him, and he was very tough. And he was even tougher when he’d run onto a stage holding a Bible up in the air. That was tough. I said, “That’s tough to beat.” But I said, “If I’m ever so lucky, I have to get him in the administration.” So that’s what happened, and you’ve done a great job. Thank you very much.
Steve, where are we and what are we doing?
SECRETARY MNUCHIN: Thank you, Mr. President. So I’m pleased to report your administration has been hard at work implementing the CARES Act. We’ve really made incredible progress over the last month working on putting over $3 trillion into the economy — unprecedented amount of support for American business and American workers. And I just want to highlight a few of the things.
Working with SBA, we were able to develop the Paycheck Protection Program from scratch. That’s now impacted over 4.3 million companies, impacting over 50 million workers; $513 billion, having 5,500 lenders working. And we are extremely pleased that we have increased the number of CDFIs and minority lenders and fintech lenders, now making sure we get this across the country with an average loan size of $118,000. So this program is really impacting American workers.
Working with the Federal Reserve, I have approved nine special facilities, totaling about two and a half trillion dollars. That’s about half of our capacity. And in particular, I’d just like to highlight the Main Street Lending Program, which is for small- and mid-market companies, will be up and running by the end of this month.
And then I would just comment on the economic impact payments, Mr. President, have really had a big impact. We delivered over $239 billion to 141 million Americans. And I want to highlight, we couldn’t be more pleased 114 million of those we did direct deposit into people’s accounts. We did 27 million checks.
And, Mr. President, we now have developed debit cards. So in an effort to expedite money to people even quicker, in a very safe way, I’m pleased to show you what a debit card looks like with your name on it, Mr. President.
Now, there’s no money for you on it. This is a blank debit card. But I want you to see what many Americans will now get so that we can get their money to them even quicker. And going forward, we think debit cards are a safe and secure way of delivering refunds.
So, thank you very much.
THE PRESIDENT: Do I sign the letter again or not? (Laughs.)
SECRETARY MNUCHIN: The next time we send money, you’ll get to send another letter.
THE PRESIDENT: All right. Thank you, Steve. Steve has had a great career. He had a great educational career — a tremendous student — and went on to very, very tremendous business success. And all of that experience was necessary for what you’re doing, right? But there’s nobody better with money and controlling money and handling money. So I want to thank you very much.
SECRETARY MNUCHIN: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.
Alex, please. Say a few words.
SECRETARY AZAR: Well, thank you, Mr. President. You know, your top priority has always been the health, safety, and wellbeing of the American people as we’ve been going through this pandemic. And that’s been our priority throughout this crisis.
We’ve got to get life back to normal, and we’ve got to restart the roaring Trump economy, and we have the tools to do that. The right mindset for reopening is not about balancing health versus the economy. It’s actually about balancing health versus health. By one estimate, the virus-induced recession will see an extra 65,000 deaths from suicide, drug overdose, alcohol abuse in the coming years. Possibly even more.
States are seeing a decline in the reporting of child maltreatment because kids aren’t at school. They’re not seeing doctors and teachers who would otherwise report maltreatment in the home environment, and so it goes unaddressed.
Mammograms are down 87 percent. Colonoscopies are down 90 percent. Approximately 1.7 million new cancer cases are diagnosed per year in our country, and if we’re seeing an 80 percent drop in cancer cases identified, we could already have 300,000 or more undiagnosed cancer cases as a result of this crisis.
A CDC report found a 60 percent reduction in vaccine administrations including, for our kids, pediatric vaccinations. Millions of kids not getting vaccinated.
The good news is that, under your leadership, we’ve built a path forward so that we can have safe reopening. We have the surveillance tools. We have the testing tools. We have the containment methodologies and resources. We are developing therapeutics, and we’re developing vaccines. So we have the strategy and the recipe to support the safe reopening of our economy. And for the sake of Americans’ health and wellbeing, we’ve got to support this and move ahead with safe reopening.
You know, I mentioned some of the physical health risks of the — of keeping our country closed down, but we have here today with us our Assistant Secretary for Substance Abuse — for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Dr. Eli McCance-Katz, who’s a psychiatrist and is the first-ever psychiatrist to lead SAMHSA.
And she, if you don’t mind, was going to say a couple words, really, about how extended stay-at-home orders can impose really lasting mental health challenges for us. If that’s okay, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: We’d love that. Please, Doctor.
DR. MCCANCE-KATZ: Mr. President, Vice President Pence, members of the Cabinet, and colleagues, as I’ve listened to states and communities struggle with mental illness issues that have arisen as a result of the virus, I wanted to ensure that governors, yesterday, heard these concerns from a medical perspective.
As my physician colleagues on the task force have been careful to rightly note, their perspective and advice centers on one aspect of the pandemic: virus containment. However, even medically, it is not the sole perspective. I felt that it was important to offer the governors a different, albeit equally important, medical perspective.
As such, I made the following remarks:
It is my privilege to serve as the Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use. But today, I really speak to you more as a psychiatrist who also happens to hold a PhD in infectious disease epidemiology.
Never did I imagine the nation would be experiencing the coinciding of mental health issues and infectious disease that my training addressed. The research literature is clear on the effects of quarantine and stay-at-home practices on mental health. We know that the longer the duration of these orders, the greater the intensity of the mental health problems experienced. We also know that these symptoms persist for years to come, even once quarantine is lifted. The data tells us that when the lives of adults, children, and families are drastically changed for extended lengths of time, for many, anxiety, depression, and stress disorders will become manifest and will persist. These are real health conditions with potentially long-lasting consequences that must be taken seriously.
To put all of this in perspective, I believe it is important to point out that, pre-pandemic, we lose 120,000 lives a year to drug overdose and suicide. How many more lives are we willing to sacrifice in the name of containing the virus?
When we look at strategies to reopen, as a medical doctor, I ask that you take into account whole health, not just one narrow aspect of physical health. We continually ask ourselves what the health costs and risks may be of reopening, but I ask: What might they be of not reopening or reopening in such a restrictive way that American lives are not restored? Of course, containing the effects of coronavirus are critically important, but so too is preventing suicide. So too is keeping a person from being terrified to ever leave their home. So too is protecting the mental health of our nation’s young people.
I ask you to remember that not every home is a safe home. Not every individual can withstand the trauma of not seeing or interacting physically with loved ones. Not every parent can survive the mental anguish of not being able to feed their children because of lost employment. Not every child can exist in a healthy way without the structure and support of school. We have to take a step back and recognize the other effects of our policies.
While we contain the virus, are we increasing the risk for suicide and drug overdose? Are we creating a future of substance use and addiction for millions of additional Americans? And if we are doing those things, why have we decided collectively that this is okay? We’ve worked so hard in states and communities across this country to combat epidemics like the opioids crisis. Why are we willing to forget those efforts now or deem them less important?
As a psychiatrist, I would argue that a life lost to suicide is just as important as a life lost to coronavirus. A family who loses someone to drug overdose experiences the same grief as a family who loses a loved one to coronavirus. Let us not forget that all American lives are precious.
Our citizens count on us to remember their health and safety in all aspects of life. The preservation of Americans’ health and the health of our citizens cannot be measured by only one metric. Virus containment cannot be our only goal, no matter the cost to Americans.
If we ignore the reality of the enormous mental health strain we’ve put on our citizens on the backdrop of an already overburdened mental healthcare system, I’m saddened but certain that the next major public health crisis of our time will be that of mental and substance use disorders, and it is not far behind.
I urge you to factor this reality into your planning, and I thank you for the work you’ve done thus far on behalf of the millions of Americans with mental and substance use disorders.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Doctor. Appreciate it. Very sobering. It’s tough. It’s very tough, but we’re getting there. We’re getting back. That’s very important. Thank you. Great job.
I’d like to ask Chad Wolf from Homeland Security just to say — maybe discuss the record-low numbers we have of people crossing the border — our southern border, in particular.
ACTING SECRETARY WOLF: Absolutely, Mr. President. I think we are taking — at your direction, the Vice President’s direction, the task force — we’ve taken a number of measures that — protecting public health: proactive and prudent measures at the border. Those include nonessential travel restrictions that we have with both Canada and Mexico. Those also include continued construction of the border wall system. But perhaps most importantly, new measures that we’ve instituted along that southwest border regarding illegal border entries. And those are the numbers that you’re referring to.
Last month, in April, we had a little under 17,000 folks that crossed the border illegally. Compare that to a year ago: April of ‘19 was over 120,000 individuals. So —
THE PRESIDENT: And they were all brought out, right?
ACTING SECRETARY WOLF: That’s right. And so 80 percent of those —
THE PRESIDENT: Seventeen thousand crossed, but seventeen thousand were brought out and sent back.
ACTING SECRETARY WOLF: Eighty percent of those 17,000 were removed within 120 minutes — two hours. The rest took just a little bit longer, but are continuing to be removed as well. So —
THE PRESIDENT: And that’s a first. That’s a first in the last 40 years.
ACTING SECRETARY WOLF: That’s absolutely right. Again, at the — at your leadership, the task force leadership, we continue to make progress on that border. Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Good. Thank you very much, Chad.
ACTING SECRETARY WOLF: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Also, Mark Meadows, who’s our Chief of Staff, he’s been around Washington for a while. He’s very popular in North Carolina. He had a seat that was very easy for him to keep. And I talked to him long and hard for a while — for a long while. But he’s a friend of mine but he’s — he’s going to go down as the ultimate, hopefully, Chief of Staff. So, Mark, it’s really nice to have you. Would you like to say a few words?
MR. MEADOWS: Thank you, Mr. President. Obviously, your work and the work of this Cabinet on behalf of the American people is very evident. It’s critical that we make sure that Americans are healthy, safe, secure, and prosperous. And because of the work of everyone around this table, and, more importantly, your leadership, we’re setting the example of how not only to tackle one of the most difficult, silent killers that we’ve ever faced in our history, but also how to come out of that more united.
And because of your executive order today, we are not only ready to reopen our com- — country, but we’re open for business once again. So I thank you for your leadership. And it’s an honor to serve you and the people of this great country.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Mark. You’re doing really — really well. Appreciate it.
And Bob Lighthizer is working on the trade deal with UK — United Kingdom. And I hear they want to very much do it. And we’d like to do it. How are you doing?
AMBASSADOR LIGHTHIZER: Well, thank you, Mr. President. We’re doing well. I’m never in a hurry to do a deal, as you know. So, yeah, we’ll see how that works out. I would like to report though, that on July 1st, we will have USMCA fully in effect, which is just in time for the reopening. We’ll have the new rules that will help American workers, farmers, and ranchers. And we’re now beginning to see some substantial new sales — I’d defer to Sonny, of course, on agriculture — but in the agriculture area and a variety of others, because of this and the other deals that you’ve done.
But in terms of the UK deal, we’re just beginning that and we’ll see how that turns out. As you said to me 1,000 times, “We’ll see how that turns out.” (Laughter.) So, that’s what I tell them: “We’ll see how that turns out.”
THE PRESIDENT: It’s through experience. You never know. You never know, do you? Well, we usually do. And actually, we’ve signed a great deal with Japan: $40 billion. We’ve created a new deal with South Korea, which was many, many billions of dollars. It was a defective deal; now it’s a very good deal.
But USMCA is actually the largest trade deal ever made anywhere in the world. People don’t realize the amount of mon- — of business that we do with Canada and with Mexico is monumental. It’s the biggest trade deal in the world. Bigger than the deal we’ve made with China. Most people don’t know that. And the China deal is kicking in. They’re buying a lot, but I feel differently now about that deal than I did three months ago. And we’ll see what all happens.
But it’s been a very disappointing situation. Very disappointing thing happened with China because the plague flowed in. And that wasn’t supposed to happen, and it could have been stopped.
So, I want to thank you very much, Bob. You’re doing really a fantastic deal. You have a lot of records. And one of the people I wanted to get when I was elected was Bob Lighthizer because he had the record and really had the reputation as being the best trade negotiator anywhere in the world that everybody respected. He was the authority. So I got him and you’ve lived up to your reputation. Now let’s see if you can exceed it, because you have plenty of work to do.
AMBASSADOR LIGHTHIZER: It’s going to — it’s going to take four years.
THE PRESIDENT: How is going with UK? What do you think?
AMBASSADOR LIGHTHIZER: Four more years to do any of that.
THE PRESIDENT: I know. (Laughter.)
AMBASSADOR LIGHTHIZER: That’s all — that’s all I ask.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the Boris — the first thing Boris did when he got — when — fortunately, he was better, because he’s a great guy — Boris Johnson, Prime Minister. He called me, and he wanted to talk about the trade deal: “How’s it going?” That was his first words to me: “How’s the trade deal going?” I said, “How are you feeling?” So it was really something.
But great job. And Mike Pompeo has done a fantastic job at State, and he’s been doing a lot of traveling. Working hard. Anything to say, Mike?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Sir, I’d just add that, in the course of this, we have brought 93,000 Americans back home who were stuck because travel had ceased. The State Department has done fantastic work getting these Americans back to their families. There’s still a few more out there. We still got a little more work to do. And we’re working to make sure that the global economy gets back on its feet too. So, along with Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Transportation, we’re trying to make sure that we’ve got all the processes in place so people can travel again in the way that they did before this virus hit this entire world.
THE PRESIDENT: Good, Mike. Thanks. Great job.
I’d like to maybe ask Scott Turner to finish. He’s somebody who’s young and strong and powerful. And he’s done an incredible job with Opportunity Zones and other things. And maybe you could finish it off. And we could take a couple of questions from the media if you’d like.
But, Scott, make the media so crazed — (laughter) — that they say, “Boy, are they doing a great job.” (Laughter.)
MR. TURNER: Well, thank you, Mr. President for the — is this on? Okay. Thank you, Mr. President, for your leadership, and Secretary Carson and Mr. Vice President. Thank you all.
And, you know, I was sitting here listening to all the remarks and what’s going on, and I’m very encouraged. And I was reminded of my time from playing peewee football, all the way to the NFL. And one of the greatest times that we had was the huddle.
The last time I was with you all was last summer. We had traveled to 21 cities in 12 weeks, and you all encouraged me greatly. And so we finished by traveling to over 60 cities with the Opportunity Zone and the council. And much fruit came about in America because of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council.
And many of you, your staff members and your teams from your agencies have been tremendous, and that has been a great team effort. Not one man, not one person; it’s been a great team that’s brought much fruit because of Opportunity Zones in America to the people inside the distressed communities.
And I’m so humbled by that. But we have a lot of work to do. Our resolve is still the same. Our spirit is the same. Our fortitude is even stronger.
The President has refocused the council, so our vision is broader. And because of that, we will not quit.
And I want to thank all of you for your leadership. Thank you for your vision. Thank you for your encouragement.
But back to the huddle. In the huddle, it was time to refocus. It was a time to reset and to encourage one another. “I know you got beat on that play, but you won’t get beat on the next one. And we have you. We have your back.” We were a team. The enemy was on the other side of the ball.
In America, we are a team. The enemy is COVID. And I want to remind everybody in the room and everybody listening in America: We’re all one team. This is the huddle today. We’re encouraging each other. We have each other’s back. We know to anticipate what’s happening on the next play. We have a great game plan. We got great leadership. All around the room, it’s a tremendous team and it’s called the United States of America. COVID will get whooped. (Laughter.) It will. But it’s going to take all of us.
And I say that, Mr. President, because this is a blessing to me to be in this huddle. But when we say, “Ready? Break,” the enemy better look out because we’re going to be victorious against the enemy and have long-term sustainability and a generational vision for America. So, long after we’re gone, the people that come behind us will be blessed. So I want you all to be encouraged.
And I want thank you, Mr. President, and thank you, Dr. Carson and Mr. Vice President, and all of you for your leadership. And I’m encouraged to be here. So thank you. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: So, you know, we have a couple of seats available — congressional seats — (laughter) — where I’m not overly impressed with the candidate. (Laughter.) And I think — would you like to move to a little different section of the United States? Because I could guarantee this guy would be in Congress in about two minutes. (Laughter.)
And, you know, I know somebody that knew Scott from the NFL. I said, “What kind of a player was he?” He said, “He was fast, but more than anything else he was tough. He was just mean and tough.” And that’s what we want. He’s tough but he’s got a great heart. He’s got a great heart. And I’ve known him now a long time, Scott. And we’re lucky to have you. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Fantastic. (Applause.) True and tough.
Okay, any questions? Please. Yes. Steve, go ahead.
Q When you say you feel “differently” now about the China trade deal, could you amplify on that a little bit?
THE PRESIDENT: No, it just seems to mean less to me, because, you know, we did this great deal with China — they have to buy billions and billions of dollars of product, farm product and other product, and it was very exciting. One of the biggest deals ever made. Actually, not as big as the USMCA, which surprises people. But it could have been bigger over a period of time, because the potential there is just beginning, in a sense. And it was very exciting.
But once the virus came in — once the plague, as I call it, came in, I said, “How did they let that happen? How did they let that happen?” And how come it didn’t go into other sections of China? Why did they block it from leaving Wuhan but they didn’t block it from going to the rest of the world, including the United States? Why is that? Beijing doesn’t have it; other places don’t have it. So why is it that it was blocked very effectively from leaving that area and going into China, but it went out to the rest of the world, including the United States? And why didn’t they let us go in and help them fix it? So I’m very disappointed in China.
Yeah.
Q Mr. President, can I follow?
Q Mr. President, why —
Q Just to follow up: You’ve been talking about possible retaliation for that. Are you any closer to a decision on that, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t talk about retaliation. Go ahead.
Q Mr. President, why haven’t you announced a plan to get 36 million unemployed Americans back to work? You’re overseeing historic economic despair. What’s the delay? Where’s the plan?
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, I think — I think we’ve announced a plan. We’re opening up our country. Just a rude person you are. We’re opening up our country. We’re opening it up very fast. The plan is that each state is opening and it’s opening up very effectively. And when you see the numbers I think, even you will be impressed, which is pretty hard to impress you.
Yeah, go ahead. Please.
Q But, Mr. President, a lot of these jobs are —
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead. That’s enough of you.
Q — not coming back, according to these studies —
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead.
Q Thank you, Mr. President. Canada has confirmed that the border is going to remain closed until June 21st, 10 days before the UM —
THE PRESIDENT: Right.
Q — the USMCA. Aren’t you worried for the economy of the border states?
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, we do. And we speak to Canada all the time. Obviously, the relationship is very good with the Prime Minister and myself and with the two countries. You know, Canada is our neighbor. We have a great relationship. We love Canada. So we’re going to be talking, and at the right time we’ll open that up very quickly. That’ll go very easily.
Yeah, please.
Q It could happen before June 21st?
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, it could. Sure. It could. They’re doing well. We’re doing well. We’re both doing well.
Q Thank you. Mr. President, you’ve said repeatedly that the United States is now the “king of ventilators” and that we have so many that we’re sending them overseas — selling them and then, in some cases, actually gifting them to other countries. My question is: Are you looking to use these diplomatically to strengthen ties with other nations and counter Chinese influence in some parts of the world?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I’m not looking to do diplomatically. I’m looking to save lives. If we can save lives of another country, that’s a great thing. So I’m only looking to save lives. Probably, that’s good diplomatically, but I’m not looking at that.
You have countries that have no chance; they have no ventilators. They would — they don’t have a capacity to build them. And we’re sending hundreds and even thousands — and we have thousands now — and they’re being produced at a very rapid pace. Jared and his whole team of geniuses from Silicon Valley and other places came in, and they’ve done an incredible job. So we have them by the thousands.
We had none, essentially. We had very few, and they were obsolete. They were broken. We’re building not only a lot of them, but we have a very high-quality ventilator, one of the highest. So, countries know that, and they’re calling us and they’re asking for help. They need help.
So I — I only think in terms of saving lives. The country — we’ve gotten some very unusual calls from people that normally wouldn’t be calling us too easily, calling — asking for help. You know, you can get swabs and you can get gowns and you can get a lot of things, but getting ventilators is very tough — very, very tough — because it’s a very complex machine, very expensive machine.
So we’ve done a very good job. And probably it does help diplomatically, but we do it for helping people’s lives — save lives.
Yes, please. Please.
Q Mr. President?
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.
Q Do you — so, Ford Motor Company has previously required visitors to wear masks when they visit their facilities. Do you plan to wear one when you go there on Thursday?
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t know. It’s — I haven’t even thought of it. It depends. I mean, you know, in certain areas, I would. In certain areas, I don’t. But I will certainly look at it. It depends on what situation. Am I standing right next to everybody or am I spread out? And also, you look — you know, is something a hospital? Is it a ward? Is it — what is it exactly? I’m going to a plant. So we’ll see. Where it’s appropriate, I would do it. Certainly.
Yeah.
Q Mr. President, you continue to talk about helping minority communities. What specifically are you looking at to help those communities? What actions?
THE PRESIDENT: So one of the things I was most proud of was the minority community and all of the work we’ve done for the minority communities. Black unemployment, Hispanic unemployment, Asian unemployment was the best ever in the history of our country. We’ve never had anything like it. We’ve never had so many African American jobs ever — ever — in the history of our country, by far.
And we are bringing our country back, and a big focus is exactly that with the minorities. Specifically, if you look at the Asians, they’ve done incredibly well; Hispanics, incredibly well; African Americans, record-setting, every month. You know that. Every month it was a record-setting jobs number. And that’s what we want to do. We want to get it back to that level.
We had to artificially close our country. One day, we had to — we did the right thing. We would have lost millions of lives if we didn’t. Think of it: If we lost 100,000 lives, the minimum we would have lost is a million-two, a million-three, a million-five maybe. But take it to a million. So that would mean 10 times more than we lost already.
Now I’ve seen hospitals like Elmhurst Queens, where — I grew up near that; I know that hospital — where they had, one day, 11 body bags in a hallway and they had some outside. And that — they had refrigerated trucks coming to take bodies away.
Now multiply that times 10. It would have been unacceptable. And that’s the lowest number possible. It probably would have been times 20 or maybe 25. So we did the right thing.
But now we have to get back to work, and we want to open up, and the people want to open up.
But we’ve learned a lot about the disease. We’ve learned about distancing — nobody ever heard of social distancing before. We’ve learned about the washing of hands. I used to wash my hands a lot, but I’ll tell you, right now I wash them more. We learned a lot. And we also learned how to put out the embers or the fires, whatever may come — we learned — without having to close down the whole country.
And we have big sections of our country that don’t have much of a problem. We have some sections that don’t have any problem at all. So we’re opening up our country, we’re doing really well, and most excitingly, we’re working on vaccines, therapeutics, and cures that are really moving along at a level that nobody would have thought possible.
And the military, I can say, Mark Esper — okay, you know Mark Esper? He’s become a very important person in the world of medicine because his military is going to be distributing — whether it’s therapeutically or whether it’s cures or whether it’s a vaccine. And, by the way, I have to say, all three are doing unbelievably well. But Mark and the military are going to be getting them out. So he has hundreds of thousands of people that he is immediately — that work for us right now. They’re fully ready to deploy. They’re ready to get the job done. They’ll be doing it at a record business.
And everything we’ve done with the military has been terrific. We’ve had admirals. We’ve had generals. I remember when Cryin’ Chuck Schumer said, “We should get the military involved.” I said, “They are.” He said, “We should use one of our generals.” I said, “We do.” Our generals have done a great job, Jared, right? And our admirals have done a great — we had everybody involved. And they are tremendously talented people. And this isn’t what they do; they fight. They’re great fighters, and they fight.
But, yeah, the minority communities are really going to be well served. I think we are going to get it right back — and this includes everybody; this includes our whole country — but right back to where it was, which was record-setting numbers.
Q But are there specific options right now that you are considering for those communities?
THE PRESIDENT: Right now, we’re opening up areas and a lot of people are getting jobs. I heard some numbers yesterday that were really incredible — the amount, percentage-wise, of the country that opened up so quickly over the last few days. I think you’re going to see some very big numbers. And I think next year is going to be an incredible year, economically.
You can never make up for all of the loss of life; you can never do that. From an economic standpoint, however, next year is going to be — I think, it’s going to be potentially a great year for us.
Yeah, please.
Q The FDA has said hydroxychloroquine should not be used outside of a hospital setting or outside of a research study.
THE PRESIDENT: No, that’s not what I was told. No.
Q So can you —
THE PRESIDENT: There was a false study done where they gave it to very sick people — extremely sick people, people that were ready to die. It was given by, obviously, not friends of the administration. And the study came out. The people were ready to die. Everybody was old, had bad problems with hearts, diabetes, and everything else you can imagine. So they gave it. So, immediately, when it came out, they gave a lot of false information, just so you understand. Great studies came out of Italy on hydroxy. You know what I’m talking about, right? Right? Great studies came out. And the combination of the three.
But we had some great studies come out: Italy, France, Spain, ourselves. Many, many doxes [sic] — doctors. Many doctors came out, and they said, “It’s great.” Now, you have to go to a doctor. I have a doctor in the White House. I said, “What do you think?” And it’s just a line of defense. I’m just talking about it as a line of defense. I’m dealing with a lot of people. Look at all the people in the room. You know, I’m the President, and I’m dealing with a lot of people. And it’s a very inexpensive drug. It’s — it’s almost pennies. It’s very inexpensive. And it’s been out for close to 70 years for a couple of different things, right? Lupus and malaria and even arthritis, they say.
But I think it’s worth it as a line of defense. And I’ll stay on it for a little while longer. I’m just very curious myself. But it seems to be very safe. But that study was a phony study put out by the VA. You may want to talk about that. I mean, we could talk about that if anybody wants to. And maybe I’d ask Alex to talk about that — if you would introduce our great, talented head of the VA and let him say a couple of words.
But that was a phony study, and it’s very dangerous to do it. The fact is, people should want to help people, not to make political points. It’s really sad when they do that.
Go ahead.
SECRETARY AZAR: Yeah. So hydroxychloroquine has been approved by the FDA for decades here in the United States for the treatment of malar- — for the prevention of malaria, the treatment of lupus, the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. And the system we have here in the United States is: Once a drug has been approved and on the market, a doctor, in consultation with a patient, may use it for what we call “off-label” purposes, which are indications that are not yet proven and not yet in the label.
And this is the Right to Try President. He, for the first time, got the historic Right to Try legislation for experimental therapies, but that applies to our existing regime, which is approved products may be used in the judgment of a physician in consultation with their patient.
As the President said — and I’ll ask Secretary Wilkie to talk a bit about the VA study — there has been — there’s been some studies around the use of hydroxychloroquine later in disease progression. But we are still working on some controlled studies earlier in the disease progression to see if we can measure the effectiveness of it in preventing the replication of the virus’s spread in mild to moderate cases rather than the more serious. And that data is still pending, but —
THE PRESIDENT: And it’s got — well, it’s got very good reviews. Very good. From many, many doctors. Many, many doctors.
Secretary, please.
SECRETARY WILKIE: Thank you, Mr. President. I — and I want to clear up something that the media has not reported accurately. That was not a VA study.
THE PRESIDENT: Can you hear him? Because I think it’s important. You asked the question.
SECRETARY WILKIE: Yeah. That was not —
Q Yes. Yes, I can hear him.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you want to listen? Because I don’t even think you’re listening.
Q I can hear him.
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead, why don’t you listen to him?
Q I am listening.
SECRETARY WILKIE: That was — that was not a VA study. Researchers took VA numbers and they did not clinically review them. They were not peer-reviewed. They did not even look at what the President just mentioned — the various comorbidities that the patients who were referenced in that study had.
I also want to echo what the Secretary of HHS said. The instructions I received from the President were very clear, and that was to preserve and protect life. Those of us who’ve had a military life — some of us around this table — we’ve been taking this drug for years. As the President mentioned, the Department of Defense and VA have been using it for 65 years. On every — any given day, VA uses 42,000 doses of this drug. And what we did, when this virus first hit us, was to use every means necessary to help preserve life.
We believed that the Congress was right, and the President signed legislation to protect life: the Right to Try. And we did this in consultation, not only with the families of those veterans, but we did this in consultation with our doctors, under FDA guidelines.
So I want to knock down the phony story that this is somehow the VA going back on what the President told us to do, which was to use every means possible to protect and preserve the lives — the lives of our veterans. And I think, as the President mentioned, we’ve seen in many cases across this country — in fact, I was on the news the day that the Governor of New York was asking you for tens of thousands of doses.
THE PRESIDENT: That’s right.
SECRETARY WILKIE: We are doing everything we can to protect the lives of our veterans. And this is one of the means that we used.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Hydroxychloroquine is used by thousands and thousands of frontline workers, so that hopefully they don’t catch this horrible disease or whatever you want to call it. It is a — a terrible virus. It’s a terrible thing. And a lot of people are taking it. A lot of doctors are taking it. A lot of people swear by it.
It’s gotten a bad reputation only because I’m promoting it. So I’m obviously a very bad promoter. If anybody else were promoting it, they’d say, “This is the greatest thing ever.” But because of me —
So, a lot of doctors swear by it; I think we can say that, Mr. Secretary. A lot of doctors think it’s great. But the one thing that is true, one way or the other way, whether you like it or not: It’s been around for 70 years. Unbelievably effective for malaria and for lupus, and probably effective for arthritis. And what has been determined is it doesn’t harm you. It’s a very powerful drug, I guess, but it doesn’t harm you.
And so I thought, as a frontline defense, possibly it would be good. And I’ve had no impact from it. I’ve now — I’ve had no — I feel the same. I haven’t changed, I don’t think, too much.
And at some point, you know, I won’t take it. Might be soon, might be in a little bit. It doesn’t — it doesn’t seem to have any impact on me. But it seems to be a extra line of defense, and it’s gotten tremendous reviews from some people, including many, many doctors all over the world.
And you should look at some of the studies. They’ve been amazing, some of the studies. But that’s up to people and it’s up — I think, strongly recommend to people with their doctor’s advice and acknowledgement. Okay?
Q Is anyone else in the Cabinet taking that regimen, Mr. President?
THE PRESIDENT: Say it?
Q Is anyone else in your Cabinet taking hydroxychloroquine?
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t know. I don’t know. I — that’s a personal thing as to whether or not they want to answer that question. But I think many of them would take it if they felt it was necessary.
I also had a case where we had somebody fairly close to me — a very nice, young gentleman — he tested positive.
Q Your valet?
THE PRESIDENT: And he tested positive. Plus, I deal with Mike alike — a lot, and Mike had somebody very close to him, who I also see, who tested positive. So I think — I thought, you know, from my standpoint, not a bad time to take it, because we had the combination of those — the two people. It’s two people in a very big building with a lot of people working. But — so I thought it would be appropriate, but it has had no impact, in terms of me. Okay?
Any other question, please?
Q Mr. President —
Q Mr. President —
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
Q Can I ask you —
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead. Do you want to go? Go ahead.
Q I just want to ask you a question on Brazil, which is now —
THE PRESIDENT: Brazil?
Q — yes — in third position — place now, catching up to Russia in second place for the number of cases. Are you finally considering a travel ban from — from Brazil and Latin America?
THE PRESIDENT: We are considering it. We hope that we’re not going to have a problem. The governor of Florida is doing very, very well. Testing is — in particular Florida, because big majority come into Florida.
Brazil has gotten more or less “herd.” You know what that is — herd. And they’re having problems.
By the way, you know, when you say that we lead in cases, that’s because we have more testing than anybody else. So we test much more than anybody else. Again, we’re close to 14 million and we said 12, 12 and a half. It’s actually close to 14 million now.
And so we have 14 million tests. And Germany, if they do 2 million, that’s a lot. And others are doing 1 million. So if you’re testing 14 million people, you’re going to find many more cases. Many of these people aren’t very sick, but they still go down as a case. So actually, the number of cases — and we’re also a much bigger country than most.
So when we have a lot of cases, I don’t look at that as a bad thing; I look at that as — in a certain respect, as being a good thing because it means our testing is much better. So if we were testing a million people instead of 14 million people, we would have far fewer cases. Right? So, I view it as a badge of honor. Really, it’s a badge of honor. It’s a great tribute to the testing and all of the work that a lot of professionals have done. Okay?
Q Aren’t you worried that they’re going to bring their cases and —
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, yeah. No, I see — I mean, as to your first part of your question: Yeah, sure, I worry about everything. I don’t want people coming in here and infecting our people.
I don’t want people over there sick either. We’re helping Brazil with ventilators. We’re sending them ventilators, okay? They — they need ventilators. I’m sending them ventilators. We have so many thousands of them. We’re sending them. We’re sending a lot of people. No, Brazil is having some trouble. No question about it.
Sweden, by the way — you know, I’ve heard a lot about Sweden and the way they’re doing. Well they have — you have Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden. That little group of beautiful countries. Well, Sweden, took a little different attitude, but Sweden has far more deaths than the other three. You know that, right? Do you know that?
Q Mm-hmm.
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, a lot more death — many times the deaths. But they did it a different way, and, you know, I understand that too. And — and as Mike said very well before, there is death on both sides. There’s death on both sides. There is death in staying in a shutdown also and lots of other things, but there’s also death. Okay?
Q What do you — sir, what do you want to see in terms of travel between the United States and Europe — lifting travel restrictions?
THE PRESIDENT: I’d love it to open up as soon as it can, but we have to make sure that we’re doing well and they’re doing well. And in many cases, we are. But, you know, we have a very big country. We have some areas that have done incredibly well. We have other areas where the results are — it’s tougher. New York and New Jersey are tougher.
People don’t realize New Jersey is the most dense state. A lot of people don’t realize that. The governor is a terrific person. He’s very liberal, but that’s okay. He’s a very liberal guy, but we like him. He’s a good man and he’s working very hard. But New Jersey is a very dense area — very, very dense.
And I speak to Andrew a lot — Andrew Cuomo — a lot. We’re working very well together. And, you know, those are the two spots that have really been very heavily hit — a big portion, a big percentage. I don’t know what it is. It’s a very big percentage. Almost half of our deaths would be to those two.
Now, at the same time, the numbers, even in those two places, are coming down. They’re coming down very rapidly. And I put out yesterday a statement: Numbers are coming down, with the exception of very little — few exceptions — the numbers are coming down all over the United States very rapidly. Very rapidly. It’s a beautiful thing to watch. But it’s left behind serious death, and it shouldn’t have happened.
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