Tag Archives: WHO China-centric

Aug 5 2020

Kayleigh McEnany Holds a Press Conference – Video and Transcript….


Posted originally on The Conservative Tree house on August 4, 2020 by 

[Home for laundry, errands and catching up before quick turnaround]… Earlier today White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany holds a press conference. [Video and Transcript Below]

[Transcript] – MS. MCENANY: Hello. Sorry to keep you all waiting. Before I begin, it is day 42 of the botched New York City primary, where still there is no election results in one congressional race. This, as the New York Times notes, is due to, quote, “the deluge of 400,000 mail-in ballots,” previewing the, quote, “challenges facing the nation as it looks towards conducting the November general election with mass mail-in voting.”

Now I’d like to highlight the Trump administration’s actions on telehealth, which the President detailed yesterday. The President signed an executive order to make regulatory reforms, allowing for greater access to telehealth and toward making it permanent.

The Trump administration has cut red tape, allowing telehealth services for seniors and for other Americans. Thirty-five percent of Medicare beneficiaries took advantage of the President’s reform, seeking telehealth services over the phone rather than through video conference. A simpler and a smarter way to go about things is now available to Medicare beneficiaries.

The President also took executive action to boost rural healthcare services. According to a 2019 study by Navigant, rural hospitals would be devastated by Medicare for All, otherwise known as government takeover of healthcare. And under that analysis, they found that if Democrats had their way, 55 percent of rural hospitals or 1,037 hospitals across 46 states would be at high risk of closure.

The President’s executive order calls for strategic investments in our rural communications infrastructure, which will expand telemedicine and rural broadband access. Democrats seek to deny Americans their healthcare freedom, but President Trump is working hard to save your healthcare by guaranteeing protections for people with preexisting conditions, eliminating the highly unpopular individual mandate of Obamacare, stopping surprise medical billing, increasing transparency, and lowering drug prices.

President Trump will continue to work hard to enact these healthcare principles by requiring price transparency; allowing states to purchase drugs from other countries; and improving Medicare to lower drug prices and reduce out of pocket costs for seniors; and by ending surprise medical billing, and making companies compete for your business by providing more options and more affordable plans.

Lastly, later today, Advisor to the President, Ivanka — Senior Advisor to the President, Ivanka Trump, will be joined by Attorney General Barr; Director of the Domestic Policy Council, Brooke Rollins; executives from organizations that combat human trafficking; and survivors from across the country for a roundtable to highlight newly awarded Department of Justice grants to provide safe, stable housing to survivors of human trafficking.

DOJ will award over $35 million in Housing Assistance Grants for victims of human trafficking to provide supportive housing and appropriate services to survivors of human trafficking.

And with that, I’ll take questions. Yes.

Q Thank you, Kayleigh. Two questions about the coronavirus. The president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, he said two days ago that he believed that the only way to have a real strong, robust economic recovery would be to shut the country down again for a month to six weeks.

I know that this idea of short-term pain for long-term gain has been shot down before by President Trump, but has it been given any more consideration, given the recent flare-ups across the country?

MS. MCENANY: No. And I would refer you to what Dr. Fauci said back in May. He said, “We can’t stay locked down for such a considerable period of time that you might do irreparable damage and have unintended consequences, including consequences for health.” And several of those consequences I’ve outlined for you before. For instance, the fact that, in any given year, you have 120,000 Americans who die from drug overdose or suicide. And we saw during the lockdown previously that we saw overdoses nationally jump by 18 percent in March and 29 percent in April, 42 percent in May.

Overdoses do go up, suicides do go up, cancer cases are missed, as Dr. Scott Atlas has pointed out that, “In the U.S. alone, there are 150,000 new cancer cases that arise every month among patients…most have not been seen.” And that was referring to the lockdown.

The American Cancer Society also noted that, during the pandemic, they’ve seen an 80 percent drop in cancer cases being identified.

So there are many health consequences. Those are three of what are a long list.

Q But — so no matter how bad it gets, you don’t think there’s any way that President Trump would look at a nationwide lockdown?

MS. MCENANY: I’m certainly not going to engage in hypotheticals, but, no, the President is not considering a national lockdown. What he is encouraging is mitigation efforts like wearing a mask, which is patriotic; like social distancing; and engaging in these really commonsense, safe measures to safely reopen and avoid the health consequences of a lockdown.

Q Okay. And one more thing about the negotiations going on today on Capitol Hill. Given the amount of money that is involved, the amount of Americans that would be impacted by this next stimulus bill, why isn’t President Trump, more — more personally involved or at least more — more visible in these negotiations?

MS. MCENANY: Well, he is through his Chief of Staff and through his Secretary of the Treasury. He’s regularly updated. I was just in the Oval Office with him, and the Chief of Staff was updating him on that very measure.

But, right now, the Democrats are being fundamentally unserious. They’ve offered no concessions, they’ve offered no plans. If anything, they’re moving the opposite way. And to demonstrate their unseriousness: Their $3 trillion plan, they’ve now said, “Oh, it needs to be $3.4 trillion.” When the President has had a very narrow, specific focus right now, it’s extending unemployment insurance, it’s making sure Americans don’t get evicted.

And when Democrats, as I noted on Friday, were offered the Martha McSally bill, which would have been extending unemployment insurance for at least seven days while these negotiations continue, that was rejected by Chuck Schumer, which should tell you exactly where Democrats stand: and it’s against hardworking Americans who lost their jobs through no fault of their own.

Yes.

Q Thanks, Kayleigh. The President, about 10 minutes ago, tweeted about vote-by-mail, absentee voting. He says, “…In Florida, the election system is Safe and Secure, Tried and True.” What, in his view, changed? Was he advised by Republicans that he was potentially suppressing his own vote by stoking unfounded fears about mail-in voting? And will he admit now what is the fact that voting across the country by mail is
“safe and secure” and “tried and true”?

MS. MCENANY: Well, the President has always said that absentee voting for a reason is different than mass mail-out voting like what Nevada is seeking to do, which leads to mass fraud.

Q But in his tweet, he says it’s the same thing.

MS. MCENANY: And also, I’d refer you to the campaign on this, but there was a victory in Florida with regards to ballots. So I believe that’s what he was referencing. Would refer you to the campaign for details on that. But he’s been unmistakably clear that when you have this mass mail-out voting, like what Nevada wants to do, the consequences are real.

When the Las Vegas Journal-Review was reporting — did extensive and very good reporting on Nevada’s first all-mail primary election, they note that there were photos of ballots tossed in trash cans, littering apartment mailbox areas, dozens pinned on the complex’s bulletin boards in various apartment complexes, and you have a postal worker who said that when she went to go deliver some of these ballots, in several cases, people had moved or died. She kept 65 ballots on her first delivery, 100 on her second. It is rife with fraud and with delay, and that is what the President stands firmly against. He wants a free and fair election.

Q But extensive research shows that there is — that fraud in vote-by-mail systems is extraordinarily rare. The President votes by mail, you vote by mail, and a dozen other top Trump administration officials vote by mail.

MS. MCENANY: So, with regard to the absentee system, that’s right.

And there is ample evidence of fraud. I would point to you the best example of this and very recent was May 12th: New Jersey’s special election in Paterson, New Jersey, where one in five mail-in ballots were found to be fraudulent in the election. New Jersey officials were charged in that case. And resident Ramona Javier said this: “This is corruption. This is fraud.” There are eight relatives and immediate neighbors she knows of listed as having voted but who insist they never even received a ballot. There are ample examples of fraud. And we can get those to you — more than just Paterson, New Jersey.

Q Another question on different issue. What can the administration tell us about the deadly explosion in Beirut? What led to it, in your understanding?

MS. MCENANY: So that was breaking as I came out. We’re tracking it closely. And just rest assured that we’re taking a very good look at that.

Yes.

Q Kayleigh, thank you. The environmental bill the President signed this morning, it was passed overwhelmingly by both houses of Congress. Both Republicans and Democrats signed on to that legislation. Can you explain why there were no Democrats at the ceremony or even mentioned in the President’s remarks?

MS. MCENANY: The President is very proud of what happened today: the single largest investment in America’s national parks and public lands in history. The most significant conservation achievement since Teddy Roosevelt. It won the support of more than 850 conservation groups. And it provides $900 million a year in permanent funding to the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

And you’re asking about recognition of congressional Democrats right now, and the only thing that we’re recognizing about congressional Democrats right now is how appalling it is that there are Americans who are going without paychecks, because they refuse to partner with Martha McSally, Republicans, and the President in ensuring that those payments go out.

Yes.

Q Kayleigh, the President has said in recent — as recently in this Axios interview, that he believes that there — that many people believe that there’s disadvantages to testing. Can you walk us through what those disadvantages are, and if, as he stated back in June, he still believes that testing is overrated and makes the U.S. look bad?

MS. MCENANY: So I would note what the President refers to with regard to testing is that — you know, the media doesn’t often acknowledge that when you do do the most testing in the world, lead the world in testing, that you do identify more cases. So that is what he refers to with testing. And he’s made that point a few times.

But, look, we lead the world in testing. The President is very proud of this. The administration is very proud of this. We’ve done more than 60 million tests. On track, according to HHS, to do 100 million by September. That’s extraordinary.

And when you compare that to the next highest number — India, in the ballpark of about 16 million tests — what we’ve done in this country is impressive. And the President is very proud of that effort.

Q But does he still believe that testing in the U.S. is overrated?

MS. MCENANY: The President, again, points out that the media refuses to acknowledge that when you test so much, you do identify more cases. That’s the point he was making. And he’s very proud that — actually, since March 12th, we have increased daily testing by 32,000 percent. Worth mentioning this is a novel virus; there wasn’t a test. And this President led the way in getting emergency use authorizations to, one, identify working tests, and then to surge the testing capacity by 32,000 percent since March 12th. And that’s thanks to President Trump.

Yes.

Q Thanks, Kayleigh. On TikTok, the President has argued that the United States should receive money in return for a potential sale, but he hasn’t really explained how. Under what authority could the Treasury collect fees from China, from Microsoft, or from any other U.S. buyer to get this done, as the President demanded?

MS. MCENANY: Okay, so I’m not going to get ahead of the President on any official action, but he has made that point. And he and both Secretary Pompeo have said that the U.S. action — that the U.S. will take action in the coming days on Chinese apps, including TikTok — TikTok, excuse me, due to the national security risk. And we all agree that there needs to be a change, especially with TikTok collecting significant amounts of private data on users. It’s unacceptable, but I won’t get ahead of the President on what those actions look like.

Yes.

Q Thanks very much. I wanted to ask, also on TikTok, about — Beijing has said that it may hit U.S. firms as a response to sort of slammed — this sma- — you know, smash and grab of TikTok. What do you say to that, in regard to China?

And secondly, China has not complied with its commitments under the U.S.-China phase one trade deal. We’re reporting today that, you know, they’ve only completed 5 percent, for instance, of the energy purchases in this first half of the year. Can you just sort of say?

MS. MCENANY: Yeah, we encourage China to fulfill their obligations in the phase one China deal and to fulfill their end of the agreement.

But the President remains keenly focused on TikTok and protecting the private data of millions of people in this country. And PRC’s, the People’s Republic of China’s, laws require Chinese companies to cooperate with PRC’s security and intelligence services, enabling the CCP to access foreign-user data. And what this means is that these entities ultimately answer to the CCP, which actively undermines U.S. interests and is hostile to American values and the rights of individuals. And the President will stand firmly against China on this.

Yes, Jon.

Q Thank you, Kayleigh. I wanted to ask you about the COVID relief bill. The President has suggested, if there is no agreement that is reached, the President would act unilaterally. As you know, the power of the purse resides with Congress. So what would the President do unilaterally? Explain what he could do unilaterally, as it relates to providing relief to American families and American businesses.

MS. MCENANY: Yeah, again, I won’t get ahead of the President on determining what that action would look like or would be. I will leave that to him to determine.

But would I say is this — is, you know, right now, we have Secretary Mnuchin and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows once again asking Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to come to the table. The ball is in their court here. We’ve made at least four offers; they’ve made zero offers. It’s unacceptable for hardworking Americans.

Q And then, Kayleigh, on mail-in voting, which you talked about at the very top of the briefing, the President suggested yesterday that he has the right to write some sort of an executive order as it relates to mail-in balloting. Can you explain what would empower the President in the Constitution to take some sort of executive action as it relates to mail-in voting?

MS. MCENANY: Again, I won’t get ahead of the President on his actions and what those actions would be, and I’m not going to get engaged in a hypothetical as to what the actions would be and what authorities they would be based upon for yet-to-be announced actions.

But just to once again underscore the President’s concern, when you look at the delays in voting in Pennsylvania — a very good report by CBS, Zach Hudak. He got a quote from Luzerne County manager, David Pedri, who oversaw — or who identified some of these delays that they saw in Pennsylvania with mass mail-in voting. And he said this, quote: “I have this nightmare of CNN, Fox, CBS, and everyone else waiting for these things to come in on election night and we don’t have them.” It is very hard to speed up this process, and Luzerne’s experience was replicated across the state.

So, as we’ve seen in Pennsylvania, as we’ve seen in New York, as we see across the country, the President is very concerned about delays and outright fraud.

Q And then one final thing, Kayleigh, on TikTok, if I may: The President said yesterday in the briefing that was — that took place right here in the briefing room — the United States “should get a very large percentage of that price because we’re making it possible.” And that was referring to Microsoft’s proposed purchase of TikTok.

I’ve never heard of that before, and maybe you could explain that to me how the government could get a percentage of a price of a private transaction. Can you explain how the President would be able to do that?

MS. MCENANY: Again, I’m not going to get ahead of the President, again, on this action.

Yes, Francesca.

Q Thank you, Kayleigh. I want to ask you something about the executive orders, but I do want to follow up on Kristin’s question and just get a better understanding of what the President is doing personally to make sure that those extra unemployment benefits are reinstated. Is he calling senators on Capitol Hill? Does he have any plans to meet with Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer personally? And is the White House concerned that all parties will be blamed if there is no deal and voters will just stay home in November?

MS. MCENANY: No one has worked harder to ensure that those payments get to Americans than this administration. Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Secretary of Treasury Steve Mnuchin have been on the Hill many, many days now, trying to get this deal worked out.

But it is Democrats, it is Nancy Pelosi, it is Chuck Schumer that are making an absolute mockery of this process. Rather than coming towards us and to a clean extension of unemployment insurance, they are moving beyond what their initial request was of $3 trillion, and then they move to $3.4 trillion. They wanted $100 billion for schools, and we offered $105 billion, to which they rejected. They are making a mockery of this process.

We’re still engaging with them, but this President has been clear: He’s ready to act on this, and it is of paramount importance to him.

Q Is he calling them?

MS. MCENANY: And again, why would you reject Martha McSally’s clean extension? Democrats are fundamentally unserious, and they’re making a mockery of the process.

Q Kayleigh, is he calling them?

MS. MCENANY: Yamiche.

Q Okay, then if you don’t want to — if you don’t want to move on that —

MS. MCENANY: Yamiche. Okay.

Q With the regards to the executive orders, the President has signed a flurry of those recently. He said yesterday that he expects to have a healthcare plan by the end of the month and also an immigration plan by next month. Does the White House feel a sense of pressure to get everything on the President’s to-do list done before November?

MS. MCENANY: No, but the President moves at a very rapid pace, and he wants to get as much of his agenda accomplished this term and going into next term. This President has done a lot already, but he will work on COVID and, alongside that, many other issues, as he routinely does.

This administration often is accomplishing items on two or three different topics in a day, as you can see today with the human trafficking, the event this morning — and then, also, I have an announcement: The President will have a COVID briefing at 5:30.

But I do want to just step back and say this, with regard to COVID: I think it’s really important to put the successes of this administration in context, and I got some new information from HHS just before I came out here. You know, this was a novel virus. There were no tests. There were no therapeutics. But what did this administration do? We, as I noted earlier, surged testing — increased it by 32,000 since March. HHS is projecting 100 million tests completed by September. Because of President Trump’s tearing down of red tape, there are — more than 230 clinical trials of potential COVID drugs and biological products are underway, and over 510 are in the planning stages. Today, NIH announced two separate COVID treatment trials, ACTIV-2 and ACTIV-3, and these are monoclonal antibody treatments.

And also, by September, we have secured more than half a million courses of treatment of remdesivir. That is one of the several therapeutics that this President has achieved in finding for the American people to treat this novel disease — this novel virus. And the vaccine, again, moving to phase three clinical trial at the fastest rate for any novel virus in history.

This could only be accomplished by President Trump — by a businessman in the White House who is not only on the race to get a vaccine — we have two in phase three clinical trial — but is securing 100 million doses in advance so that we’re ready to ship them out. This President has been hard at work on COVID, along with a number of other issues, and those EOs will be forthcoming.

Yes.

Q You called on me. Can I please go?

Q Thank you.

MS. MCENANY: (Calls on the next reporter.) Yes.

Q Israel — Israel reopened —

Q (Inaudible.)

MS. MCENANY: No, you can go ahead. I called on you.

Q Israel opened schools — Israel opened schools — Israel opened schools, and they got —

Q Please go.

Q — and they had issues with that. There were outbreaks; students got sick.

MS. MCENANY: I called on you.

Q What do you think of the fact that Israel opened schools and had to close?

MS. MCENANY: Yamiche, you — you — I had called on you, and you didn’t ask your question, so then I proceeded to call on Andrew.

Q (Inaudible) ask to speak over another reporter; I wasn’t going to do that.

MS. MCENANY: Go ahead, Andrew.

Q So do you not want to answer my question now that I was not being rude to another reporter?

MS. MCENANY: Go ahead, Andrew.

Q Okay. The President said in his interview with Axios that he was doing everything he can do to address the virus. Is that really true? I mean, is there nothing more that he can do at this point?

And also, is he willing — so does that suggest that he’s willing to accept the number of deaths that we’re seeing every day?

MS. MCENANY: No, we’re hard at work each and every day to defeat the invisible enemy. And, in fact, just to give you an update on some of the actions we’ve taken: Right now, there are currently 28,220 U.S. government personnel deployed for COVID-19 response. On top of that, next week — Dr. Birx has visited states across the country, and next week, she’ll be visiting Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia.

We’re hard at work at, again, getting more EUAs for more treatments and therapeutics and testing. So we — every day, we’re rapidly looking at how we can make this the most robust response in the history of this country. And I think that we’ve done that, when you look at remdesivir and the therapeutics at play.

And the case fatality rate is really indicative of what this President has done. When we have the lowest case fatality rate — one of the lowest in the world, below the average of the world and below Europe — that shows that our therapeutics are working: remdesivir, convalescent plasma, and dexamethasone.

This President is hard at work, and he’ll continue to work hard on this.

Q But how can you say you’re doing everything that you can possibly do when there are still waits for getting test results back; when you have declined to impose a national mask mandate; when you’re saying that you won’t shut down the entire country again?

MS. MCENANY: So with regard to testing and the timing, when we identify a problem, we quickly identify a solution. And when there were delays in testing, we immediately identified pooled testing as a way to increase the speed of testing. We already lead the world in testing, so to increase the speed, we moved towards pooled testing, and that’s the flexibility with which this administration adapts to problems we identify on the ground, and we rapidly develop a solution to ameliorate the problem.

Yes.

Q Thank you, Kayleigh. Would the President like to see Mitch McConnell put the 600-dollar extension of the unemployment benefits through the end of the year on the Senate floor to put the Democrats in the spot of having to vote for that clean extension?

MS. MCENANY: So I haven’t talked to him about that proposal, and I don’t want to get into the middle of the negotiations. But what I — it’s safe to say is there’s been one proposal — one clean proposal to extend unemployment insurance. That was put forward by Martha McSally. The President was ready to sign it, and it was rejected by Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.

Q Can I follow up and just ask on a —

MS. MCENANY: Yes, you may.

Q — on a slightly separate topic whether or not the White House has a view on whether or not members of the media, a pool, should be allowed to cover the Republican National Convention’s official proceedings in Charlotte, which apparently, as of right now, because of the space limitations, the convention committee is saying that that’s not going to be possible.

MS. MCENANY: Yeah, I’m not read into the convention discussions, but I certainly will inquire about that and follow up with you and find out what the status is.

Yeah. (Inaudible.) Yes.

Q Thank you so much, Kayleigh. Do you have anything with regards to the massive explosion in Beirut that occurred earlier?

MS. MCENANY: Again, that was breaking as I came out here, and safe to say we are monitoring the situation.

Yes.

Q Thanks for calling on me. I wanted to give my question over to Yamiche.

MS. MCENANY: Sure. That’s fine.

Q Thank you so much. So my question is — I have two questions. The first question is: Israel opened its schools back up. They thought they had the virus under control. That virus then spread and it became an outbreak. Students got sick. They had to close schools down. How worried are you that what happened in Israel might happen here, given the fact that there are experts in Israel who say they made a mistake there?

MS. MCENANY: Well, I would refer to our experts. And CDC Director Robert Redfield answered about schools on the Hill last week, and he said this: “I don’t think I can emphasize it enough, as the Director of the Centers for Disease Control, the leading public health agency in the world: It is in the public health interest [that] these K-through-12 students…” get back to schools that are open for face-to-face learning. “I want these kids back in school…It is paramount to the health of the child.”

Q And the President just tweeted to — you answered a question about this — mail-in voting or absentee voting, whatever you call it — he is saying that, essentially, it’s the same thing. So why is it now something that can be done in Florida but not in other states? Why is that the appropriate thing to do?

MS. MCENANY: He’s not saying — he’s always made the distinction: Mass mail-out voting —

Q He’s not, in his tweet.

MS. MCENANY: — is with Nevada, where ballots are mailed en masse out to the voter rolls. So in a place like L.A., for instance, where 112 percent of L.A. County is registered, ballots go out, and at least 12 percent of those we know are not active voters.

So that is the distinction from absentee voting, which is where you proactively request an absentee ballot. There’s a difference there. And the President —

Q He’s not making the difference, though.

MS. MCENANY: — the President repeatedly makes the difference. And he is also noting — as I told Jeff, you can follow up with the campaign on this — but there was a victory in the courts in Florida, and that’s what he was referencing in the tweet.

Yes.

Q Thanks, Kayleigh. You mentioned extending the eviction moratorium and the unemployment insurance. On Saturday, Trump tweeted “Payroll Tax Cut plus Dollars!” Is a payroll tax cut still on the table?

MS. MCENANY: The President would love to see the payroll tax holiday because it would, in fact, benefit low- and middle-income Americans the most. But, right now, his keen and laser focus is unemployment insurance and evictions. Those are the preeminent priority, especially with that Friday deadline that Nancy Pelosi missed.

Chanel.

Q Thank you, Kayleigh. This administration has worked to — has identified human trafficking as a crisis and has worked to combat it. The National Center on Sexual Exploitation has identified TikTok an online — online platform that enables sexual exploitation of young people, especially in America. Would this administration ever consider — if TikTok became a U.S. asset, would this administration ever consider rules or imposing rules that would help mitigate this risk against young people on the platform TikTok?

MS. MCENANY: Yeah, I haven’t spoken to the President about that specific fact scenario, but absolutely it is a priority for this administration to combat human trafficking and the exploitation of children. So we would certainly take a close look at that. But I — I have not talked to him about that specific fact pattern.

I would like to end just by highlighting a troubling trend that I think we’ve seen play out across the country, and I believe we have a few graphics to illustrate this. It pertains to the “Defund the Police” movement.

And when you look at, across the country, the ties of defunding the police with increases in violence, it’s a cause for concern. As we saw in the beginning of this administration, violent crime was starting to come down, and then bring in the “Defund the Police” movement.

In Los Angeles, you had L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti proposing a cut of $150 million from the LAPD. L.A. Mayor Garcetti said this: “It starts someplace, and we have to say we are going to be who we want to be, or we’re going to continue being the killers that we are,” was his quote, in support of the defund movement. And as a result, we saw a 14 percent rise in homicides this year over last year.

In Minneapolis, the “Defund the Police” movement was afoot as well, with a unanimous vote in Minneapolis City and their council to dismantle the police. And you had Minneapolis City council member Jeremiah Ellison saying, “This is one action of many that we need to take on the road to a more equitable and just system that keeps people safe.” In fact, it did not keep people safe. We’ve seen a 94 percent increase in homicides compared to last year in Minneapolis.

And then, finally, in New York City, “Defund the Police” — you had the New York City Council voting to cut police budget by $1 billion. You had Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez saying, “Defund the police means defunding the police. It does not mean budget tricks or funny math.” So it wasn’t enough for AOC. But you did have New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio saying, “We think it’s the right thing to do.” It was absolutely not the right thing to do, as we’ve seen a 177 percent increase in shootings from July 2019 in New York.

When you defund the police, there are consequences. And that’s where the Democrats of today stand. And, unfortunately, we’ve seen a corresponding rise in violence in these Democrat cities, and it’s not acceptable.

Thank you very much. And you’ll see the President at 5:30.

END 1:33 P.M. EDT

Aug 4 2020

The Media’s Conspiracy Against the People


Armstrongs Economics Blog/Press

Posted Aug 4, 2020 by Martin Armstrong

YouTube moderators, with no medical background to even determine if what is being said is true, are censoring doctors who contradict the WHO and Bill Gates. It is totally outrageous how these social media companies are conspiring against the people to censor things they have no expertise in reviewing. This is purely a “policy” decision, which would be hate speech if they promoted that everyone within some race was evil. They removed even Trump’s retweet of the doctors who staged a press conference in front of the Supreme Court. Since this involves the health and welfare of all people, they claim they have a right to impose their own political views. If someone dies because they were refused hydroxychloroquine because of the media, the media should be held responsible.

The media has grossly misrepresented the threat of COVID-19, which clearly shows they are trying desperately to spark a political coup, whereas if the Russians did this, they would demand investigations if not war. On average, Democrats appear to be deeply biased and live in fear of COVID-19, while people aged 55 and older account for 92% of all deaths. Those people aged 44 and younger account for only 2.7% of all deaths. Democrats have been seriously misinformed and overestimate the risk of death from COVID-19 for people under the age of 24, assuming it is a 50/50 chance, when the real risk remains people aged 65 and older. Never in the history of the United States has such a misinformation/propaganda campaign been waged against the people by the media.

I reported that my cousin was a front line-nurse in New Jersey. She caught COVID-19 and it passed in a couple of days. But she gave it to her husband who was overweight and had diabetes. He had to go to the hospital with lung problems. They gave him hydroxychloroquine and zinc, and he was home in two days. The only reason there is this war against hydroxychloroquine is that it negates Bill Gates’ vaccine. The media will not report how much Gates and his vaccine partners stand to make from this agenda. Why? By also denying that hydroxychloroquine works, it allows them to take even more draconian steps to impose lockdowns and imprison people for violating their decrees. This certainly seems to have a political undertone.

 

The retaliation anyone who stands up against the left and their agenda is vicious. The lead doctor in that press conference before the Supreme Court that YouTube took down was fired, and then they had their website shut down. Welcome to the real America where freedom of speech is nothing more than a bedtime story.

There is a whole other agenda here, and it is far worse than what they accused Russia of doing (interfering in the 2016 US elections). The US, under the guidance of the Clintons, allowed the bankers to try to take over Russia TRANSFORMING IT INTO A VESSEL STATE by blackmailing Yeltsin. It was this clandestine operation from the Money Plane supporting “the Club” which forced Yeltsin to turn to Putin. This is perhaps why Goldman Sachs demanded their staff could not donate to Trump — only Hillary.

This is clearly an all-out war to take over the government and force a Socialistic agenda to raise taxes dramatically and impose this Great Reset agenda upon everyone by eliminating all freedom under the pretense of public health. Never in the history of the world has any other government used public health as the excuse to destroy what people have worked for, alter the economy, and strip all of us of our right to be free of such tyranny. Never has anyone ever been quarantined for thousands of years unless they were sick. You do not quarantine the entire population. Lepers were sent to colonies, but they did not lock down the entire population.

There are many in the media who have simply become the new enemy within against the people.

Aug 4 2020

German Fake News – People Demanding Freedom


Armstrong Economics Blog/Germany

Re-Posted Aug 3, 2020 by Martin Armstrong

 

The Berlin Protest was indeed far greater than the German press tried to claim. But even more so, they called these people NAZIs and fringe right-wing conspiracy nuts. You will see this was not a right-wing demonstration nor was it brandishing Nazi symbols. The German people are shouting: “Resistance! Resistance! Resistance”, “FREEDOM” and “We are the people!” Many are fed up with government incapacitation and government and media misinformation.

According to TV news, there are 20,000 people, others speak of over 1 million protesters. Supposedly many right-wing radicals, citizens of the Reich, etc. … but if you look closely, it is grandma and grandpa, mom and dad, brother and sister, children and adolescents, consistently mature citizens and everyone is calling for the end of corona measures and FREEDOM FREEDOM FREEDOM.

The disinformation campaign against the people is massive and it is not restricted to just the United States. The objectives are very clear. This is the 1848 Socialist Revolution all over again and they are out to suppress any resistance.

Aug 4 2020

German Protest was Seriously Understated by Government & Media


Armstrong Economics Blog/Civil Unrest

Re-Posted Aug 3, 2020 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT: Hi Marty,

20.000 People in Germany is the MM number. People who were there estimate between 500.000 Minimum and 1,7 Million Max.
All the best, SP

 

REPLY: I am getting a lot of emails from Germany saying the government and the press have grossly downplayed the number of people out there for the protest. This is just more of the same trying to convince people only the lunatic fringe disagrees with the lockdowns. They seem to think if they keep downplaying the impact of these lockdowns, people will forget. What they are missing is the destruction to people’s future and wiping out countless jobs and businesses.

Aug 3 2020

The Frontline Doctors will not be silenced!


From the CDC website we find this chart showing the deaths per age group for 2020 related to the Wuhan Virus. From this screen capture you can see that the deaths have dropped to a point they are only slightly above normal for respiratory illnesses. Left unsaid by the media is that COVID-19 kills primarily the same ages groups as many of the other versions and as COVID-19 kills an older person it means they will not be killed by another version so what really needs to be looked at are the total deaths from all respiratory deaths not just COVID to get the true picture.  And keep in mind that there is a financial incentive to “code” all respiratory deaths as COVID related to get federal money so its a reasonable assumption that COVID deaths are overstated.

Next we have a video of a press conference that took place in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, July 28, 2020, held by the group America’s Front line Doctors and organized and sponsored by the Tea Party Patriots Foundation. The press conference featured front line doctors sharing their views and opinions on the novel coronavirus, the medical response to the pandemic, and the censorship they have experienced from Big Tech.

I have added, to this post the video from the same groups that was taken down from Monday July 27, 2020. This one will not be taken down. This one is twice as long and goes into depth of the use of Hydroxychloroquine which DOES IN FACT WORK especially as a prophylactic. The front line doctors talk a lot about that and that is why the video was remove from the web.

Hydroxychloroquine is both safe and effective!

Lastly we have another chart from the CDC website which shows the deaths per week including all other medical related deaths. Here we can see that the COVID-19 deaths have created a spike but the current rate of deaths is barely above normal now.

Which means the shut down must end now!

 

Aug 3 2020

What is Bill Gates Up too with His Vaccines and Dominance in the Medical Field? If You are Curious then you Must Watch these Four Videos!


This post is about Bill Gates and his personal vision to safe the human race from extinction, or so he claims. It seems however that when we dig deep into his and his family’ past that things are not what they seem.

A dozen years ago, or there about, Bill Gates became worried about Climate Change and started to give TED talks on what the world had to do to save us from extinction. In those presentations Gates stated that one of the variables in his equation had to go to zero to stop Carbon Dioxide from killing all of us.  Now keep in mind that Gates does not have any degrees and knows little about anything but making money with software. We do however recognize that he was very good at that but we must also understand that he had no formal training or studies in anything else.

Gates’ vision is a world with less than a billion people and probably closer to 500 million. This world will be very clean and use only solar PV or Wind to power this Utopian Dream. Everything will be perfect and safe for those that reside in that world. Dreams of that kind are neither practical nor doable but that never stops those that have these visions: like Karl Marx who also had a vision of a perfect world Marxism. Unfortunately that vision brought us WW I,  WW II and the cold war and hundreds of millions of dead people, and Marxism has still not been eliminate as the evil system that it is.

Gates has managed to merge Marxism, Environmentalism, Climate change and World health into one Political system using technology, which he is very good at. What Gates has started makes George Orwell’s “1984” look like it was done by a rank amateur. If Gates even comes close to achieving his objectives we will be living in Hell! This system of his is called “The Great Reset” Meaning the TOTAL REDO of: our culture, our economics system, and our political system.

The story of Bill gates from James Corbett

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Aug 3 2020

Protests Against Lock-down in Berlin


Armstrong Economics Blog/Disease

Re-Posted Aug 3, 2020 by Martin Armstrong

Nearly 20,000 protested in Berlin over the weekend against the lockdown and arguing that masks make them slaves. Many have ignored wearing masks and physical distancing as they accused the government of “stealing our freedom“. The press is clearly part of this conspiracy against the people for they are reporting the rise in cases that only reflects herd immunity and not deaths. With the flu, which they totally ignore, for even the CDC states that 44,802,629 Americans had the flu in the 2017-2018 season. Reporting mere thousands with this virus and blowing it up into something that has terrified many and make it seem as if you will face certain death is just outrageous. There should be a class-action lawsuit brought against the media for deliberately not reporting the truth.

Aug 3 2020

Can Trump Postpone the Election? Maybe He Can!


Armstrong Economics Blog/Uncategorized

Re-Posted Aug 3, 2020 by Martin Armstrong

Trump tweeted about postponing the election due to the main-in voting without proving who you are. There is a lot of fake news running around claiming that the 20th Amendment to the Constitution says the term must end by January 20th. However, this does not specify which January.

The 20th Amendment says: The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.

Then there are many claiming that the 22nd Amendment defines the term of the president as four years. This Amendment only limits the president to two terms and has nothing to do with the length of a term of office.

The 22nd Amendment Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

Originally, the office of President and Vice President were separate. People ran for each. The way we have Vice President selected by the Presidental candidate is also not authorized by the Constitution.

Article II, Section I:

“The electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves. And they shall make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the number of votes for each; which list they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President; and if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the said House shall in like manner choose the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each state having one vote; A quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. In every case, after the choice of the President, the person having the greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them by ballot the Vice President.” (see also 3 USC §12)

All of this does not address what happens in an emergency. Former President Harry Truman seized steel production under the argument of national security during the Koren War. He explained: “Our national security and our chances for peace depend on our defense production. Our defense production depends on steel.” He claimed, “inherent power” to do what needed to be he had done. The Supreme Court rejected that argument saying that: “The Founders of this Nation entrusted the lawmaking power to the Congress alone in both good and bad times. It would do no good to recall the historical events, the fears of power, and the hopes for freedom that lay behind their choice.” Justice Robert Jackson wrote:

They knew what emergencies were, knew the pressures they engender for authoritative action, knew, too, how they afford a ready pretext for usurpation. We may also suspect that they suspected that emergency powers would tend to kindle emergencies. Aside from suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus in time of rebellion or invasion, when the public safety may require it, they made no express provision for exercise of extraordinary authority because of a crisis. I do not think we rightfully may so amend their work.

However, here the enemy of the state is actually Congress. There is no question that the COVID numbers have been so abused because the hospitals are paid even for people without insurance as long as they claim they have COVID. Even the director of the CDC Robert Redfield admitted that before Congress. The numbers are inflated because they are not paid unless it is COVID.

This has been defined under National Security. What is fascinating is that this conspiracy to seize the government from Trump has manufactured an actual National Security Crisis using this exaggerated COVID Pandemic which did not exist under Truman. Here, there are shortages of money because of social-distancing and shutting down the economy so people have not been spending cash, and even the Post Office is disrupted. In trying to mail books, delays were unbelievable.  Congress changed its rules and have allowed its member to attend remotely. That in itself may not be constitutional. Congress has allowed lawmakers to cast votes for as many as 10 other House members by proxy. This is certainly a highly dangerous new rule.

Article I, Section 4 clearly requires that: “The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.” There is no Constitutional Authority for proxy votes. Each representative was to represent 30,000 people – not a party. Additionally, elections for the Senate and House of Representatives were: “The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators.”

Here we have vast portions of government offices not functioning – even Congress itself. This opens the door to the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 51 (Homeland Security Presidential Directive HSPD-20). This was signed by President of the United States George W. Bush on May 4, 2007, in the aftermath of 911. , This Presidential Directive establishes an interesting comprehensive policy whereby what happens when the federal government institutions fail to operate in the event of a “catastrophic emergency” which the media has certainly turned this COVID Crisis into locking down the entire economy.

The COIVID contrived crisis is such an emergency is defined as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.”

The Directive states its purpose:

“This directive establishes a comprehensive national policy on the continuity of Federal Government structures and operations and a single National Continuity Coordinator responsible for coordinating the development and implementation of Federal continuity policies. This policy establishes “National Essential Functions,” prescribes continuity requirements for all executive departments and agencies, and provides guidance for State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector organizations in order to ensure a comprehensive and integrated national continuity program that will enhance the credibility of our national security posture and enable a more rapid and effective response to and recovery from a national emergency.”

This presidential directive defines the “national essential functions” of the federal government, specifies “continuity requirements” for the departments and agencies in the federal government’s executive branch, and “provides guidance for state, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector organizations. It also provides for a National Continuity Coordinator who will oversee the “development and implementation of federal continuity policies.”

Since Congress has made new rules that it will no longer require member to be present due to this COVID Crisis and allows proxy voting not authorized by the Constitution, the very foundation of a representative government has ceased to exist. The purpose of this Directive is to protect the constitution. There is no comity among the branches to preserve the constitutional framework of government to execute constitutional responsibilities and provide for orderly succession, an appropriate transition of leadership, and interoperability and support of the National Essential Functions during a catastrophic emergency.

This Directive 51 asserts that the president has the power to declare a catastrophic emergency. It does not specify who has the power to declare the emergency over. It also authorizes the new position of “National Continuity Coordinator” would be filled by the assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. The directive further specifies that a “Continuity Policy Coordination Committee“, is to be chaired by a senior director of the Homeland Security Council who is selected by the National Continuity Coordinator. The majority of this order is secret and has not been published. The mere fact that Congress has stopped attendance and allowed proxy voting does not comply with the constitution and calls into question is this COVID Crisis has indeed risen to a catastrophic emergency thanks to the media.

It certainly appears that this is ripe for the Supreme Court. What if there was an act of war and Congress was destroyed in an attack? How would the government function is Congress does not attend? The primary mission of the Homeland Security Act was to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States, reduce the vulnerability of the United States to terrorism, and minimize damage and assist in recovery for terrorist attacks that occur in the United States. If it argued that COVID was deliberately released by any clandestine group to bring down the US economy in order to create a Great Reset opportunity, then clearly Homeland Security comes into place and the Justice Department is duty-bound to investigate if anyone in Congress or any agency, including Fauci, have conspired with anyone to create this national catastrophic emergency and cause the national GDP to collapse in the greatest recorded decline in history.

There is the authority to postpone the elections when Congress itself is no longer attending. This will end up in the Supreme Court, but there should be a nonpartisan investigation of everyone involved and ASAP to be able to reveal evidence to justify this catastrophic emergency which has been fueled by CNN, Washington Post, and New York Times just to mention a few.

 

3 USC §12. Failure of certificates of electors to reach President of the Senate or Archivist of the United States; demand on State for certificate

When no certificate of vote and list mentioned in sections 9 and 11 of this title from any State shall have been received by the President of the Senate or by the Archivist of the United States by the fourth Wednesday in December, after the meeting of the electors shall have been held, the President of the Senate or, if he be absent from the seat of government, the Archivist of the United States shall request, by the most expeditious method available, the secretary of state of the State to send up the certificate and list lodged with him by the electors of such State; and it shall be his duty upon receipt of such request immediately to transmit same by registered mail to the President of the Senate at the seat of government.

(June 25, 1948, ch. 644, 62 Stat. 674 ; Oct. 31, 1951, ch. 655, §8, 65 Stat. 712 ; Pub. L. 98–497, title I, §107(e)(1), (2)(B), Oct. 19, 1984, 98 Stat. 2291 .)

Amendments

1984-Pub. L. 98–497 substituted “Archivist of the United States” for “Administrator of General Services” in section catchline and two places in text.

1951-Act Oct. 31, 1951, substituted “Administrator of General Services” for “Secretary of State” in section catchline and two places in text.

Effective Date of 1984 Amendment

Amendment by Pub. L. 98–497 effective Apr. 1, 1985, see section 301 of Pub. L. 98–497, set out as a note under section 2102 of Title 44, Public Printing and Documents.

Aug 2 2020

Silenced Frontline Doctors Hold Capitol Hill Press Conference to Challenge Big Tech


Re-Posted from  —— Bio and Archives—July 30, 2020

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This video is of a press conference that took place in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, July 28, 2020, held by the group America’s Frontline Doctors and organized and sponsored by the Tea Party Patriots Foundation. The press conference featured frontline doctors sharing their views and opinions on the novel coronavirus, the medical response to the pandemic, and the censorship they have experienced from Big Tech.

I have added, to this post the video that was taken down from Monday July 27, 2020. This one will not be taken down. This one is twice as long!

 

Aug 2 2020

Rep. Jim Banks Castigates China for its Propaganda and Coronavirus Coverup


RePosted from AMERICAN THOUGHT LEADERS BY JAN JEKIELEK July 30, 2020 Updated: July 31, 2020

LINK TO THE VIDEO 

The Chinese Communist Party has a massive global apparatus to spread propaganda, from paid inserts in The Washington Post and The New York Times to networks of Twitter bots.

China Daily is one of nine Chinese outlets that have been designated as foreign missions by the State Department.

Earlier this year, the Chinese regime launched an aggressive campaign to deflect blame for its coverup and weaponization of the coronavirus outbreak.

In this episode, we sit down with Indiana Congressman Jim Banks, one of the first to demand reparations from the Chinese regime for its deadly coverup of the CCP virus.

This is American Thought Leaders 🇺🇸, and I’m Jan Jekielek.

Jan Jekielek: Jim Banks, such a pleasure to have you back on American Thought Leaders.

Jim Banks: Great to be with you.

Mr. Jekielek: Jim, last time we talked, we were talking about coronavirus. It was still in the early stages, but we already knew that the Chinese Communist Party was responsible. And at a very early time, you were already talking about the prospects of getting some kinds of reparation, holding China accountable financially. How have things come since then? It’s been three months, I think, since we spoke.

Rep. Banks: Yes, it’s been a while. I remember all the way back then, three months ago when we were calling for reparations to hold China accountable, immediately, I was called racist for raising the subject. Many of our critics on the left [and] even some on the right thought we were crazy for calling for it. But it seems that all of American politic has come around. American leaders have come around to the idea of admitting that yes, China is ultimately responsible for the spread of the coronavirus. What we know now [is] that China refused the CDC, WHO, and others from coming in to study COVID-19 back in January. Their outright refusal to allow that to happen—which could have prevented some say up to 90% of the cases of the coronavirus that have spread globally since then—[means] they should be ultimately held responsible for that.

From President Trump to, I believe, the vast majority of the American people, this is a shared belief in America. Unfortunately, our leaders haven’t done enough to hold China accountable at this point. I understand that we have a lot ahead of us as we rebuild the American economy, as we try to get America back on its feet. But at the same time, what the American people have suffered through, what people have suffered through all over the world, China should be held accountable for it. And so far, they aren’t being held accountable enough.

Mr. Jekielek: Just recently, Secretary Pompeo gave a speech. I’m almost sure you’ll agree it was a pretty significant shift. Of course, it came on the tails of the other speeches that were before by [Christopher] Wray, by [William] Barr, and by [Robert] O’Brien. So is there room for this holding China accountable financially in this new approach?

Rep. Banks: I really believe so. This president has come a long way. His administration has evolved substantially since the beginning. But where we sit today with Pompeo, O’Brien, the leadership at the FBI, and Attorney General Barr, some of the leading figures in American government today understand that it’s important that we don’t just rebuild America and get America back on track through our continued efforts, but at the same time, hold China accountable, not just for the coronavirus, but for their activities over decades that have sought to disrupt America [and] to disrupt American interest abroad.

There’s such a record here of China’s actions that are very much antithetical to American interest that we should be holding them accountable for that we’ve never had before. You have the right people in the right places to do that. Unfortunately, what’s looming over our heads is an election, and this is what the election, I believe, is all about. This isn’t a campaign interview. But on one side on the ballot, you have President Trump with this extraordinary team of leaders who understand the China threat better than ever before, versus a politician, Joe Biden, who, for 50 years, has been a part of leadership in America that has turned a blind eye to China’s actions. So that is what’s on the ballot. In November, who will we choose to put at the helm in the White House for the next four years? Someone who is content with leaving China alone and dismissing the China threat or someone who very much, for the first time in my lifetime, has identified it as a threat?

Mr. Jekielek: However, [former] Vice President Biden has talked about taking a tougher stance on China. In fact, he has advanced some policy positions in that vein.

Rep. Banks: He has [said] so because that reflects, I believe, the mood of the American people, but he has a record that’s very contrary to that. Joe Biden, as a senator and again as vice president, was a leader in American politics at the time that we normalized relations with China in the late 70s, early 80s, allowing them to enter the WTO in 2000, 2001. Those efforts began in the late 90s. And then, really, [there were] a couple of decades, especially for the entirety of the Obama administration, where we refused to ever hold China accountable for stealing our intellectual property, for disrupting the American economy by not living up to their end of generations of bad trade deals that we had in place with China as well. So the record speaks for itself. Talk is cheap, especially during a presidential election cycle, but the record is very clear, and it speaks for itself and is very much in contrast with President Trump’s record.

Mr. Jekielek: Well, … a number of people that I’ve spoken with have told me, basically, “Hey, I was really wrong about China. I was one of the people that voted for these things.” With any luck, this is the same situation for the [former] Vice President and his entourage.

I wanted to ask you a little bit about the China Daily. I heard you talking about that earlier, and … it continues to be delivered. This is Chinese Communist Party propaganda. They’ve been marked as a mission of the Chinese government. They are effectively representing the Chinese government, and this is in every congressional office as if it were another American media, and you’re very concerned about this. How is this still the case now?

Rep. Banks: Yes, it’s unbelievable to me. Every time I get my stack of newspapers on my doorstep in the Longworth House Office Building, the China Daily is in the middle of it, and I pull it out in the midst of The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Times and even your newspaper [The Epoch Times].

Here’s the China Daily, which is a state-run propaganda arm of the Chinese Communist Party that magically appears on the doorstep of every lawmaker on Capitol Hill. I’ve raised that question. I’m not trying to be either sarcastic or naive about it, but nobody has a good answer of how it ever appears on my doorstep to begin with. Who pays for that to appear on the doorstep of a member of Congress—by the way in locked, especially right now, locked-down Capitol Hill House Office Buildings with security that’s second to none with Capitol police officers everywhere? Magically, the China Daily, a state-run newspaper, propaganda arm of the Chinese Communist Party appears on my doorstep. Nobody can answer that question. The Sergeant at Arms, the House Administration Committee, even Speaker Pelosi has been completely silent on that subject.

The great irony of it is that every independent media outlet, mainstream media outlet, in America often criticizes the President or criticizes others for diminishing the freedom of the press, raising issues of First Amendment protections of the media. And here’s a newspaper that is in direct contrast to that. We require foreign outlets, propaganda outlets, to register as foreign agents in the United States of America, and yet we have them appearing on our chief decision-makers in America, our lawmakers’, doorsteps. We have this propaganda newspaper show up on our doorsteps. So it’s astonishing to me that it happens to begin with, but the very fact that no one will do anything about it and aside from your outlet, no other media outlet in America has even reported on it tells you something’s wrong, something’s backward with that paradigm.

Mr. Jekielek: It’s fascinating, and hopefully, something will be done further. I’m sure you’re pursuing it.

Rep. Banks: We’ll keep pursuing it.

Mr. Jekielek: Let’s talk a little bit about the effects of coronavirus, CCP virus, as we call it, here in America. Right now, there’s this big debate—I know this is something you’ve been weighing into—about whether or not to … reopen all sorts of things, but especially schools. There seems to be a kind of surge in cases; although it’s also debatable. Does that just mean we have a lot more testing or what does that mean exactly? There are a lot of mixed messages, certainly in the data with the politicization of the results and everything else. What are your thoughts?

Rep. Banks: Well, years from now when we look back and judge the response to how we dealt with the coronavirus, the most devastating thing that I believe that we’ll look back and say was a huge mistake was that we closed our schools and we kept them closed potentially well into this next school year. Many schools have announced that they will not reopen the classroom. They will provide virtual learning opportunities for kids who we know would be much better off in the classroom.

Meanwhile, by the way, China—who is responsible for the spread of the coronavirus to begin with—has reopened their schools. So that tells you something. China’s reopening their schools. We’re keeping ours closed at a time when we have a great power competition with China, when China is beating us in a number of different areas when it comes to STEM skills and education in their country versus American students. And they’re going to reopen their schools, get kids back in the classroom, and we’re going to keep ours closed. It’s just unbelievable to me that we would react in that fashion, not do everything that we can to get our kids back in the classroom.

I’ve said over and over again [that] we should change the conversation in America from “We might not be able to reopen our schools and get our kids back in the classroom” to “We’re going to do everything possible, everything that it takes to get our kids back in the classroom and give them the valuable, fundamental, important educational opportunities they need to compete in the next generation with China and any other threat that we face—when it comes to the skills that we need to economically and militarily confront the threats that we face, especially with China.” Right now we’re going to fall further and further behind because we’re keeping the doors to our schools closed.

Mr. Jekielek: Really, the big question is, “what is the risk to the kids, to the teacher, and so forth?” … Before we finish up, what are the experts telling you?

Rep. Banks: Well, science is very much on the side of reopening. Science and all of the statistics show that kids are the least likely to contract or spread the coronavirus to others. So the very fact in and of itself that there have been such a small number of cases of coronavirus among children and the death rate among children is almost zero … should govern the decision to reopen. It very much stands on the side of those who believe that we should reopen.

However, I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I don’t traffic in conspiracies, and I never have. I’ve never been that much of a skeptic. I’ve been much more hopeful about America. But when it comes to this subject, I really am beginning to believe that the day after Election Day, our educational leaders, the educrats, the ones that are in administration of our schools in America, are going to be just fine with reopening our schools. I believe this has as much to do with politics and the presidential election that looms ahead of us, as it does anything else. And that’s extremely bothersome to me.

Mr. Jekielek: We have to finish up in a moment. Any final words before we do?

Rep. Banks: Well, it’s great to be with you and talk about these subjects. Today, we’re at this Liberty University event here at the Trump Hotel talking about the China threat. All of a sudden, there is a large volume of policymakers and leaders in America … who understand the China threat more than ever before. Largely, I believe the American people get it. They understand what we’re up against with China because they’ve been affected by China economically for years, and it’s a good thing to see events like today take place to further identify the threat and talk about what we can do about it.

Mr. Jekielek: Congressman Jim Banks, thank you very much.

Rep. Banks: Thank you.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

American Thought Leaders is an Epoch Times show available on YouTube, Facebook, and The Epoch Times website. 

Follow Jan on Twitter: @JanJekielek