Again, thank you for being here. It we look forward to your remarks. President trump thank you very much. It is great having fema involved. We have had tremendous success working together and we appreciate all the people here. It is an honor to be here with all of you and you are doing a fantastic job, by the way. As of yesterday, when we gave a lot of progress is being made. I look forward to speaking with the governors. From what we understand, we have close to 50 governors. We have just about everybody showing up. That is very nice. We will put them on the screen as soon as you want. Mike, you want to Say Something . Pence thank you, mr. President. Thanks notdd our only to fema, because fema takes. He lead on the policies but as you do, continually, mr. President. And i want to thank the governors today, talking about the progress we are making on mitigation. On testing, on supplies. As femas mission, this effort through fema will be executed and state managed and federally supported. I want governors to know that we are with you every step of the way. We are determined to make sure tot you have the resources see to the health and wellbeing of your communities. We commend the governors. At this point, mr. President , as we told the country today, three of theare 50 coronavirus cases in america today. We are focusing resources at the point of the need. The governors in those states and Health Officials are responding with great professionalism and great speed. We will continue to support those directly impacted. Emergencyur declaration, mr. President , we are standing up fema and the National Response enter. We want our governors and state and local officials to know, as you say, we are bringing the full weight of the federal government to bear. We will get through this coronavirus. We will get to this together. President trump i believe that 100 . Media, stand aside. We will have the screen behind you. We will open this up to the governors. Ok, who is that speaking . I can hear you fine. Thank you, brian. I want to thank you all for the constant communication. And all that they have done. I just want to encourage you all to leave the directive for the National Guards with the governors. As you all know, we are on the front line of the fight. We are in the fight with you. Make thosee can best directives based on what is going on in our state. President trump i like that idea. Thats done. I like it. The second thing is i want to thank you for standing up if Federal Medical Facility close to diamond air force base. Had almost 500 from all over the country. We are glad to work with you all to support the neighbors from other states. We are down to about 200 people there right now. We have things working very well there. You that encourage when visitors leave, consider leaving the facilities and help with the surge we are seeing in the special metro area hospitals. If you are willing to consider that. And i will pass this along to you. It is kind of a big idea, if you will. As stimulus packages move through congress, we created an Economic Impact subcommittee task force. They had a recommendation. We got this not too long ago. Idea,e been vetting the we had time to prepare the end of the year. We are drastic revenue drops. And i delivered a block grant to the states. It would be something i would like for you to consider. Thewe had an idea on unemployment insurance. But i will give that to you all for consideration. Have things to consider. We just wanted to throw that out there. Thank you for the constant communication and support. President trump very good. Thank you very much. We will consider everything youve said. Who is next . Next governor, please . You are looking well, phil. So are you. Good to see you and the Vice President. A couple of points. We had a really good week with fema so i want to give them a shout out. Corps is visiting us in this building at 4 00 today to talk about repurchasing facilities for more beds. Two areas. One in terms of where we will need help, a test point on flexible lock grants. Block grants. That will allow us to continue to serve our people. We help those that help themselves. It we are doing everything we can to get ppe. Strategicll meeting a needing a strategic stockpile. Try what trump phil, you can and do the best you can to get what you can. Are getting produced frankly, nobody has ever seen anything like this before. We will consider the block grants very strongly. Hello, john bel. Arer. Vice president , we pushing coordination. On your radar screen, if you look at cases by state on a per capita basis, we are right at the top of the country. And of course, the Health Care Infrastructure is designed to meet the population. Isfear based on modeling that we start to exceed capacity to deliver health care. And we may only get an additional three days. And so im asking for help in terms of capacity here in louisiana. We have requests for a va hospital where we have requested to be able to search cases there. We have not received a response yet. We have a medical station through hhs. We are asking for help. We are going to do everything we can to slow the spread. But in the time that we have, we have to increase our Surge Capacity. That is my biggest concern and i wanted to express that to you. President trump what is your second request . The second request beyond the Surge Capacity is looking at the National Guard and bringing them under title 32 for funding purposes. President trump we will look at that and i will try to get you immediate approval on the hospital. We will speak to the v. A. At least as a switch. We will get that approved for you one way or the other. Thanks a lot. President trump thanks, john bel. Briefly, mike, if you could say a few words. And deborah, if you could say a few words. Great. Esident pence again, we thank the governors and yourleadership partnership confronting the coronavirus. Make your all to citizens aware that the president signed the family First Response act. Relief for caregivers, Food Assistance to the needy. It get the word out to your citizens. It would be very helpful. , we have worked with many of you through state labs of course, cdc testing is available in all 50 states. If you have questions about the availability of testing in your state, you can talk to your state Health Department and Health Care Providers. What i want every governor to know that because of the Publicprivate Partnership that the president forged, thermo ,isher as of last night laboratories are coming online by the hour. When they are done, we will have. 000 labs up around the country the Health Care Providers will know where those resources are. We encourage you to bring your team together. While tens of thousands of tests ,re being performed every day the bill the president signed last night also included a provision that states and private labs must report all coronavirus testing results to the cdc. Emphasize that he or state Health Department and Health Care Providers. I encourage you to pull them together today before the end of business. We are rapidly expanding testing around the country. In a. Birx will reflect moment, we want the results of the testing so that we can be informed about that so the American People can have full visibility on testing as well. We should also explain that we will see as testing is ramping up today and tomorrow, we will see an increased number of cases. Context to you and your citizens. President trump has been engaging Industry Leaders in the supply chain across the country to make sure that personal protective equipment and medical supplies are broadly available. Masks, i have of talked to many governors about m95 masks. In the bill the president signed last night, we have unlocked tens of millions of m95 masks. What the president asked the congress to do, and they did, is extend Liability Protection to all industrial m95 masks. Those can be sold to hospitals and Health Care Providers. We urge you to communicate that to hospitals today to let them know that the supply has dramatically increased and they can place orders. If you can reach out to companies, the president is urging those builders to donate those masks to local hospitals and clinics. ,n the subject of ventilators we are currently surveying Health Care Providers around the country and suppliers. I am pleased to report to you that we have already identified tens of thousands of ventilators , including ventilators that can be converted to treat coronavirus patients. , youaction item on that should survey your Outpatient Surgical Centers and your ors o. R. s. Dr. Birx has been working with suppliers. We have identified that they are available. Tens of thousands of ventilators will be available because of the survey currently underway. The other point we want to emphasize at the direction of cdc, we are encouraging hospitals and every american to postpone elective surgery. Explain to your citizens that this will have a direct impact on hospital capacity. By suspending elective surgeries, it will free up space in hospitals, including respirators. Many people that require respirators is because of a surgery gone wrong. This frees up capacity across the board. I know it is not lost on any of the governors here that by standing up fema, you have essentially created a structure that every governor is very familiar with dealing with disasters and emergencies. We have activated all Emergency Support functions and interagency functions here. We are here for comments and questions. We intend to run all of the response in support states through the National Coordination center and through fema. This center is fully operational. Governors, i want you to tell your teams that this nrcc will be connected to your states through your regional administrators in your state Emergency Operations centers. So this will be very familiar to all of you. Any questions that you have, the only thing that i would ask, on the president s behalf, if there are issues that arise in your state, begin with your regional fema administrator. Administrator. Literally 20,000 people work for fema, you know what incredible people they are, and they are ready to go to work. With that, i might turn it over to dr. Birx with your permission, and she will reflect on what we know about the data and the spread of the disease. Thank you for your leadership, and what you are doing to implement the coronavirus guidelines. It is an honor to serve with all of you. Dr. Birx you should have received analysis of cross andstry analyzed by state in counties with more than 50 cases. 50 of cases are in three states. Is the primary states of california, washington and new york. And captive in new orleans. We are concerned for urban areas where social distancing is crucial. The issue of increasing spread due to contaminated counters and things in restaurants and bars, as well as movie theaters, is absolutely critical. I know you are concerned about hospitals, but critically you need to make sure medical and surgical procedures and dental procedures have been canceled. That your Outpatient Surgical Centers to be your Surge Capacity, those ventilators can be converted to be used. Solvework together to this, unlocking the masks from construction was absolutely key, as well as the ventilators situation. Beenederal government has proactive in ensuring we decrease bureaucracy barriers. We believe innovations will continue to come on the field, and we appreciate your frontline workers informing us about the changes. It is important we are tracking data on a county by county, because we can look at whether mitigation is working. This will only be solved if every person in every Community Takes responsibility to ensure they are following the president ial guidelines put out several days ago. We will stay in close to communication with all of you through fema. We are excited about the activation of fema to provide a stay in so we can closer to medication and ensure we have prioritized our stockpiled elements. Reporting becomes critical. If we cannot see it, we do not know how to unlock the stockpiles. Testing will be absolutely essential, as well as hospital understandso that we exactly what is required from the federal government. Pres. Trump thank you very much. Briefence just two points on the subject of testing. The u. S. Public Health Service has built a model that so many states have begun drivethrough testing, and are doing yeomans work in that space. Supportive of that going forward, and are rolling that out. The last point, we want to encourage every governor on this call to convene your leading Healthcare Providers today to take inventory of your medical supply needs, and we urge you to remind them that they need to look to their supply chains first. ,e will prioritize accordingly and any states in the middle of critical response, know that we will work with you to get you what you need. Other states need to talk to your health leaders, providers, and make sure they are going to the supply chain. We encourage you to pull together today to emphasize that point. Pres. Trump President Trump thank you very much. The fda has approved compassionate use for a significant number of patients. , a common malaria drug. It has been relatively safe. It showed very encouraging early results, really encouraging. If this works as hopefully as it might. The fda, which would have taken our greatdo under secretary the head of the fda has been fantastic. He got it approved very quickly. It is approved. We are encouraging you to take a look at it. We have ordered a lot of it. You can too. It is by prescription. It is a powerful drug for malaria and also for various serious arthritis. We think it has a very good impact on what we are talking about with respect to the virus. You can coordinate with us. To me, that is a game changer. Youvaccines are fine, but need we are making tremendous progress, but it takes a while to test it. We are studying other therapies produced by gilead. It is called remdesivir. A company is also working hard on a drug. They are doing very well. Successfulp with a solution to ebola. They have been a fantastic company. We have some great things. The drugs i mentioned are very good, but especially if you look at the first dimension, could first mention, could be a total game changer. This is by prescription. States can issue it. We have an approved by the fda. I think it will be very interesting to see. We will know quickly. Andave had very good test it has been successful. To me, that is the most important thing anyone can say, if it works. I want to thank the fda for moving quickly. This would have taken years and they got it done almost immediately. Who is the next governor, please . Hi pete. Hello, mr. President. Thank you for your leadership. The key things we are hearing from people are around you are on the right track. We need to expand access. Three things to bring to your attention. And we has been swabbed have a test kit, we are working to conserve the reagent. My colleagues are out. If you put attention into the cdc how we get reagent out r eagents out. Second thing, child care. Following your directive on monday, we reduced groups to 10 people, but we need alternative daycare for first responders, anyone involved in public safety. Thated a waiver to do quickly. I want to put that on your radar screen to take a look at that. Finally, guidance from the department of education on appropriate education requirements. We have someone work with School Officers on a temporary approach. Have attorneys in some schools telling my teachers they can do anything because they will get sued because of state requirements. If we could have temporary guidance to allow flexibility. Forols are not operating students. We would like to use them for other things. President trump we will get back to you. Great job you are doing. Who is our next governor . Next . Hey, mr. President. This is governor baker from massachusetts. First i want to thank you for signing the family first act. That will certainly provide needed resources to all of us. I will echo the argument of the governors made that more flexibility is better than less. I have two things on the ppe issue, a huge issue for all of us. Can you speak about the guidance on the implementation of the defense production act with respect to man up and addition and generate additional capacity . The second thing, i will just throw it out there we took weiously the push that should not rely on the stockpile putput in orders and pressure on manufacturers and distributors. On three big orders, we lost to the fed. Could you give some of these guys some guidance . If states are doing what the feds want to create their own supply chain, people should be responsive . Is between you and me, i will lose every one of those. President trump we like seeing what you can get. Price is a component also. Maybe that is why you lost to the fed. I will ask mike to discuss that. We have some brandnew information. V. P. Pence we will take that back. Secretary of hhs is here. All theto facilitate Providers Health Care to access the supply chain. On the defense production act, thepresident has activated defense production act, but not initiated action underneath it. As the president brought together leaders of business and mr. President , you talked about the spirit to ramp up to meet the needs of Health Care Providers. Yetpresident has not exercised his authority under the defense production act. Ishink the perception american industry is stepping forward aggressively. Make morentinue to ppe available. President trump for everyone, the country has stepped up. I dont think we have seen it in decades. It is incredible how they stepped up. Thank you, charlie. Next governor. This is larry hogan. Iswant to thank you for ths call today and the great communication you had with governors. Thank you for signing the second stimulus and for your ongoing efforts to mitigate the Economic Impact. Thank you for appointing Vice President pence. He has been terrific in reaching out to us. Yesterday we had a meeting of governors. Getting bombarded by different questions. We tried to consolidate them to a group of concerns. Last night with the white house and want to raise those issues, some of which you already covered. I want to summarize. Most were the ones the consensus on. Dedicate at least 50 of supplemental funding to the states, including direct funding. Withave done a great job this funding. We are in a good position at the state level to get the money out faster. You are doing the stimulus and getting the checks out to people. If we have money in the states, we can utilize it faster. , every governor is trying to work with you about increasing access to ppes, mass accelerating production, lifesaving equipment. 50t is something all governors have at the top of the list. Appointeesrom your from the council of governors about supporting title 32 authorization to give governors more flexibility with their National Guards. It helps us pay those folks. We activated 2200 guard members in our state. All 10 of your appointees are on this call. Providing guidance on implementation of the defense , give someact thoughts about how the states can be more involved. Morey, allowing us flexibility for the completion of the census and real id. We are trying to not force people into mvas so we dont have people trying to get renewals of licensing. Thee are things all governors want to address. I want to thank you. You have a terrific team. I want to limit the people bothering you directly and blowing up the phones. What weo reiterate talked about last night, going through the normal fema process. It is great you are so willing to help governors personally. Better if youppen have more people addressing these issues. That is a summary. Thank you. President trump i think the fema is going to go great. We have done so much work with fema. Tennesseeornado in and last year a big tornado in alabama. We worked with california in the big forest fires. Fema does the job like no other. I know they will be a tremendous help. I would like you to call steven mnuchin, give him detail so that while we are doing this we are getting a lot of cooperation from republicans and democrats. Thank you very much. Next governor, please. Mr. President , before the next governor speaks, if peter gaynor could give us a couple minutes. Governor hogan, we appreciate your affirmation of the have alls decision to the state requests and resources funnel through a customary system at fema. Mr. President , with your permission . Welcome to the National Response coordination center. Leading internal response to the pandemic. We are prepared to do this for the long haul. The health and safety of the American People is my top priority. The hhs Crisis Action task force and federal partners fully integrated at femas National Response coordination center. All 10 fema centers have been activated to support ongoing response efforts. Currently there are 50 states, five territories and one tribe b fundingved the 501 for covid19. Needs fromt fema everyone. Regional administrators will determine the type and support you need as you continue to respond to this dynamic threat. Successful when it is state managed and federally supported. Have unmetif you your, speak them to regional fema administrator. I need your help in emphasizing that at the local and county level you should funnel questions up from the state, regionalhe fema administrators. Aboutwe issued guidance what eligible protective are. Res thessued guidance for defense production act. I thank everyone for your continued partnership. We will get through this tea. Her as a President Trump in addition to general that the you know, the army corps of engineers, involved in a couple of location specifically. He is busy. He is a good builder. Thank you for being here. Next governor, please. This is Gina Raymundo from rhode island. President trump hi. Go ahead. Can you hear me . Sorry about that. Good afternoon. I want to echo what others have gratitude fory your transparency, especially the Vice President who has been generous in getting on the phone with me a few times. I welcome the opportunity to work with fema. Prior to coming to d. C. , pete here. Was my ema director President Trump that is great. I agree with everything said. I want to add a few other points. One, we are following your direction and passing hospitals to suspend elective surgeries. That is an incredibly important source of revenue to hospitals. As you are putting together the next round of stimulus, i would ask you to consider direct and sizable stimulus to our hospitals. Thing is secretary mnuchin agreed with this yesterday i would ask to shortterme liquidity needs of states. As our revenue falls off a cliff, we may need access to Capital Markets to deal with shortterm liquidity. That would be helpful. In amay need that help matter of weeks, not months. I fully support what has been as ked for as it relates to block grants. All of us are on the ground and need flexibility to quickly react to the needs of small businesses. We will have to do our best to help them. Thank you for having me call. Incredibly helpful. President trump thank you. We will look into those points strongly. Please, go ahead. Governor of utah. You mr. President and Vice President. We appreciate the suggestions. It is helpful as we look at best practices. One thing i would like to suggest is what we can do. People are uncertain. They are afraid. , howed to bring certainty long we have to tread water. The stock market is in kind of a freefall. Theas we look at utah, economy is still doing pretty good. We can do. What practices, what we can do as work arounds. People in the hospitality industry, what can they do in their restaurants to keep people shutdown. R than total example, golf is a great activity where we have few people and an open space. Golf courses taught to be ought to be a place of recreation. Do,s not just what we can but best practices to adapt, innovate and succeed. I would like to hear more optimism. It gives hope and confidence in the future. Think we will be a rocketship as soon as we beat the invisible enemy. It is in over 140 countries. It moves fast. It is very contagious. We stppepped up. A lot of good things are going to happen. Back veryt will come fast. We are poised to come back very fast. Hopefully it will be far sooner rather than later. I appreciate it. Next governor, please. This is the governor from michigan. Michigan relies on a lot of medical care professionals coming across the canadian border. I am not going to waste your time echoing the comments my colleagues made. Made rateful that they them. Autoted to touch on the industry. My colleagues across the country have serious investments from the Auto Industry. We are concerned about liquidity up and down the supply chain. Conversationshat have been around industry. Sector frontthis and center. Ensuringmmitted to they have a path to prosperity. President trump you are right 100 . We will be helping the Auto Industry out. They requested some help. It wasnt their fault what happened. I appreciate your comments. Next governor, please. This is governor jb pritzker of illinois. I want to express my gratitude to your staff and others working in your administration. They have done yeoman work in being responsive. Thank you, mr. Vice president , neededurning calls as we more answers about testing. That is what i wanted to ask about. We understand the drivethrough testing across the country, we but to see it in illinois, we understand there are only provided to uss in illinois 40s drivethrough then there iss, no more promise after that. I want to understand what will happen. This is a day or two days of testing. 5000will happen after the run out . President trump the states have done a lot of that themselves working in conjunction with us. Thank you. We are effectively transitioning to largescale testing by leveraging all components of our American Health care system, including labs, hospitals. Wetween march 2 and march 14, made available 10. 4 million tests to the u. S. Population. We anticipate by march 28 that number will be 27. 6 million tests according to the fda. The fda of supplies, has made available a number of o ptions for supplies. Ureyou dont have cult mediums, you can use sterile saline. In general, the commercial market is working extraordinarily well. The cdc and Public Health laboratories to date conducted over 45,000 tests. Large Clinical Laboratories conducted over 63,000 tests, were of which 20,000 done yesterday. We dont have the tens of thousands of hospitals. Before i get to your question, fda os aval by the testing of a testing system is important to your hospital system. 175 of these systems across the country. 000 tests were released yesterday with one million more coming in the next week. They can do 500 tests per day within your hospital system. In terms of your drivethrough, we are on 47 sites. Fema regional we cantrators how support you. Dozenl have more than a starting tomorrow. We gave the initial allocation, throughant you to work yourfema system to give requirements. We will bring that back through the fema system. Demand foreen great these drivethrough centers. 5000, provide more than but we did not want to give away so much at the beginning. We want to take advantage of the supplies you are talking about. Is while you are providing test kits, we dont have the reagents, the swabs. We have to go to the market to find it, but it is being monopolized by the federal government program. Problem is if we dont have reagents or swabs, we cant do more tests. Being provided to illinois for drivethroughs are not enough going forward. Swabs toeagants and expand more rapidly. Our hospitals are doing amazing own testingeir capability. Theeally need this supply federal government has access to, that we are competing with the federal government for. President trump that shouldnt be a problem. Will you answer that . Thet is not true that drivethrough centers are monopolizing the market. E get the kids through the kits through the commercial market. When i was asked about shortage, i went to the commercial market and got 2000 and shipped htem to them to states who couldnt find it. Access them. You your states toth acquire them. Intoe fully integrated fema. Andppreciate the enthusiasm there will be more than 5000 available to you. President trump last night we bought 250,000 swabs distributed neededous states that them the most. 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You can watch all of cspans Public Affairs programming on line and on our app. You can be part of our program through our social media feed. Cspan created by private industry, americas Cable Television company as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. President trump held a briefing with reporters on the coronavirus pandemic. He was joined by the Vice President and members of his task force. This is an hour and 20 minutes