Transcripts For CSPAN White House Coronavirus Task Force Briefing 20240713

Pres. Trump thank you very much, everyone. Begin, i would like to offer my condolences and best wishes to the people all across our great south, who have endured deadly tornadoes and other severe weather. Mississippi,ana, alabama, florida, georgia, tennessee, and south carolina. My administration will do Everything Possible to help those communities to get back on their feet. We are speaking with governors. Fema is already on its way. They got there as soon as we heard. I said, get out there. You know the great job that fema does. It is really something, very special. We just want to say, warmest condolences and we are with you all the way. It is a tough deal. That was a bad level five. That is as bad as it gets. That is a bad grouping of tornadoes. The power, the horrible, destructive power. Americans continue to make critical progress in our war against the virus. Over the weekend, the number of daily new infections remain flat nationwide. Slowing intions are new york, new jersey, michigan, and louisiana, clear evidence that our aggressive strategy is working and americans are following the guidelines. It has been incredible what they have done. You looked at the charts and the models. Early on predictions were 100000 and 120,000 people, if they did well they were going to unfortunately perish. We are going to be hope leeway below that number hopefully way below that number, a sign of people doing things right, but it is still a horrible thing all over the world. 184 countries. This is a tribute to our Wonderful Health care advisors and experts who have been with us from the beginning. We appreciate it so much. Dr. Fauci is here. Say ai could ask tony to few words before we go any further. Tony, please. Just a couple of things and a comment about something that happened yesterday. You are going to hear from dr. Birx about the numbers, how things are starting to balance out. Each day i think we are going to see that. I never like to get ahead of myself or dr. Birx, but it looks like even though we had a bad week last week you remember i was saying this was really a bad week there is still going to be a lot of deaths, but we are starting to see in some areas a flattening, particularly in a hotspot like new york. The second thing is i had a very productive conversation with the Congressional Black Caucus this morning for about an hour. They really wanted to know what exactly are we doing in the immediate as well as the longrange about the Health Disparities and discrepancies in infection and poor outcome in minorities, specifically africanamericans. I made it clear that we have to focus on getting resources where the vulnerable are and get testing done to get the appropriate identification, where proper and appropriate, to isolate and contact trays if we can. But also to help mitigate on on a community that is suffering more disproportionately. The other point i wanted to make is i had an interview yesterday that i was asked a hypothetical question. Hypothetical questions sometimes can get you into difficulty because it is what would have or could have. The nature of the hypothetical question was if in fact we had mitigated earlier, could lives have been saved . The answer was, as i always do and i am doing now, perfectly honestly, say yes. Obviously medication helps. I have been up here many times telling you that mitigation works. If mitigation works and you initiate it earlier, you will probably have saved more lives. If you initiate it later, you probably would have lost more lives. You initiate it at a certain time. That was taken as a way that something was at fault. Let me tell you from my experience and i can only speak from my own experience. We had been talking before any meetings about the pros and cons , the effectiveness or not of strong mitigation. Discussions were going on mostly among the medical people about what that would mean. The first and only time that dr. Birx and i formally made a recommendation to the president to actually have a quote shut down, not really shut down, but to really have strong mitigation, we discussed that obviously there would be concerns by some that might have negative consequences. Nonetheless, the president listened and went to the mitigation. The next, second time that i went with dr. Birx to the president and said, 15 days are not enough. We need to go 30 days. Obviously there were people who had a problem because of the potential secondary effects. Nonetheless, at that time the president went with the Health Recommendations and we extended it another 30 days. I can only tell you what i know and what my recommendations were. As happens all the time, there were interpretations of that response to a hypothetical question. I thought it would be nice for me to clarify because i did not have a chance to clarify. [inaudible] dr. Fauci i dont even remember what the date was. The first and only time i said we should do mitigation strongly , the response was we will do it. What did he do . The travel restriction . Dr. Fauci the travel restriction is separate. That was whether we wanted to go into 15 days of mitigation. The travel was another recommendation. We said we probably should be doing that and the answer was yes. Another time was we should do it with europe and the answer was yes. Next the u. K. And the answer was yes. You said there was pushback. Where did that pushback come from . Dr. Fauci that was the wrong choice of words. When people discuss, not necessarily in front of the president , they say this is going to have a harmful effect on this or that. It was not anybody saying you should not do that. Are you doing this voluntarily . Dr. Fauci everything i do is voluntary, please. Dont even imply that. Trump the travel ban was done earlier. If you look at statistics i havent to write a couple of them down i happened to write a couple of them down. Cdc issued a, the travel notice for wuhan, china, before there was even a confirmed case of the virus in the United States. This is january 6, all documented. Because we have so much fake news, i like to document things. Datesy 6, long before the we are talking about, the cdc issued a travel notice to wuhan. On january 11, we have zero cases in the United States. There are no cases reported that we know of. The cdc issued a level 1 travel notice while there were still no can earn cases still no confirmed cases. People want me to act. I am supposed to close down the greatest economy in the history of the world and we dont have one case confirmed in the United States. On january 17, the cdc began implementing Public Health entry screenings at three major u. S. Airports that receive the greatest amount of passengers from wuhan, at my instructions. Ofre was not a single case coronavirus in the United States. On january 17, there was not a case. The fake news is saying, oh, he did not act fast enough. When i did act, i was criticized by nancy pelosi, sleepy joe biden, everybody. I was called xenophobic. I was asking i was asking biden to please define that for me. And by the media, definitely. On january 21, long before the time we are talking. End of talking about the february. January 21, still early, there was one case of the virus at that time. At that time we called it the wuhan virus. In the whole United States we had one case. This is documented and a lot of it comes from you people. Cdcanuary 20 one the activated an Emergency Operation center that was just one case. That is why that add was ad was such a phony. There was one case in the whole United States. I am supposed to shut down the government, the biggest economy in the history of the world, shut it down and we have one case . Seven cases were on january 31. There was a case not one person died. Not one person. So we have this massive country, the United States of america, we have the greatest economy in the world, greater than chinas by a lot because what we have done over the past three and a half years, prior to the virus, but including the virus. We had the biggest economy, greatest economy, test employment numbers, test unemployment numbers, the and unemployment numbers best employment numbers. Not one person died. This is reported by cdc, confirmed by the news, which does not mean anything to me because they do not tell the truth. 31 not reported january one person died and i issued a travel restriction from china. It, nobody died and i issued it. You cannot get earlier than that. Nobody died and i said china, you cannot come in, i am sorry, because i saw what was going on. It was not so much what i was told, i saw what was going on and i did not like it. I did not speak to tony about it, did not speak to many people about it. So what did i do . In the United States, not one person had died because of the, again, the wuhan virus. So i issued travel restrictions on that day even though nobody died and i got brutalized over it by the press. Early, i was way too should not have done it, brutalized by the press, but i have been brutalized the past four years. I guess i am doing ok because to the best of my knowledge i am the president of the United States, despite the things that are said. Quarantine iny , the same50 years restrictions the democrats and the media called xenophobic. Racist. N said he is a he called me a racist because i said that we are shutting down entry from china, we are shutting it down. He called me xenophobic and he called me a racist and other things. Since then, on a friday night two weeks ago, joe biden issued he did not write it, i am sure he does not know it was issued, but the people from his campaign, it was smart, people who write pr releases are reasonably smart. They issued a statement saying joe biden agrees President Trump was right to close it down to china. He issued it on friday night. Was later friday night than i ever released mine on friday night. He did it pretty late, like 11 00 in the evening. In february, nancy pelosi said we should come to chinas come to chinatown, we think it is safe, lets all have a big parade, chinatown parade. Probably referring to san francisco. But i took this action early. So the story in the New York Times was a total fake. It is a fake newspaper and they write fake stories. Someday, hopefully in five years when i am not here, those papers are out of business because nobody will want to read them. But now they like them because they write about me. I have a couple interesting we have a few clips we are going to put up. We could turn the lights a little lower. I think youll find them interesting. Somewe will answer questions and i will ask you some questions because you are so guilty, but forget it. Most importantly, we will get to the reason we are here, which is the success we are having. Please, if you could put it up. Thank you. [video clip] people should be concerned about the flu and this country. Coronavirus people are concerned about the coronavirus, the reality is, comparing it to the flu, it is not at that stage. What if it is worse . Put politicses aside, pride aside . Should u. S. Officials, professional such as yourself get involved . how worried should americans be about coronavirus . Is not a majors issue in the United States. Asked them to accelerate whatever they are doing in terms of a vaccine. We will be suspending all travel from europe to the United States for the next 30 days to unleash the full power of the federal government, i am officially declaring a National Emergency. Medicare patients can visit any doctor by phone or videoconference at no additional cost. the first one Million Masks will be made available immediately. As there were more cases and it was clear it was spreading out of china where it originated, the president took this move which was widely criticized by democrats and even some republicans at the time, which was he halted a number of flights from china into the u. S. The idea was to halt the spread of the disease, keep transmissions to a minimum. He was accused of xenophobia, he was accused of making a racist move. At the end of the day, it was probably effective because it did take a pretty aggressive measure against the spread of the virus. his team is on it, they have been responsive, late at night, early in the morning. They have thus far been doing everything they can do and i want to say thank you and that i appreciate it. Calls, reaches out, he has been proactive. We got that mercy ship down here in los angeles. That is directly because he sent it down here, 10,000 medical units came to the state of california, these fms, field medical stations. That has been very helpful. the president has been outstanding throughout this. The Vice President has been outstanding. Members of the Coronavirus Task force, very responsive. we have been asked of new jersey can be have a piece of comfort on the u. S. N. S. And the president called me to say indeed they would grant that to new jersey. That is a big step for us in addition to all the other capacity. That news is literally hot off the press and i think the president and Vice President who were on the call together. President Trump approved arizonas request for a major disaster declaration. I want to thank the president for a quick turnaround. We requested this on a wednesday and we had approval i saturday morning and by saturday morning. We are grateful for their continued support and responsiveness. i want to think the president and Vice President for doing a good job communicating with all the governors. [end video clip] pres. Trump we could give you hundreds of clips like that from governors including democrat governors. We could give you hundreds of clips just like that. We have them. We did not want this to go on too long, but i wanted to say it is very sad when people write false stories like in that case i guess it was mostly from the is aork times, which highly if you had liable laws libel laws, they would have gone out of business. You saw the statements. We have hundreds of statements, including from democrats and democrat governors. If you look they were saying, we need ventilators. Hear ventilators you do not hear ventilators anymore. Peoplefairness these two here, dr. Birx, dr. Fauci, they said, i do not think they need that many ventilators. I agree. At one point new york asked for 40,000 ventilators. That is more than they have all over the country. We got them a lot of ventilators and no one has complained. Know, them, as you beautiful. We built hospital rooms all over the country. The governor of louisiana, john bel edwards, said you do not have to build a second hospital. Good news, they are not able to fill the beds. They needed two hospitals. We built one, we were just starting another. Do we need to build a second one . He got back, we did not need it. In good spirit and in good faith, he wanted the Javits Center done and we built 2900 incredible beds. Covid19, which was a lot of work. We had to change the ductwork, seal off certain areas, put rooftop things over the beds. But theylot of work, never had too much use for it. Mayor de blasio said, would it be possible to get more medical help . Now not only are we building facilities, they are asking us to help because they are unable to man it. We got mayor help, de blasio a lot of help. When the Javits Center was not used much, and the mercy, we took the comfort, and we made them both, los angeles and new covidadaptable, which was not easy. We did not get almost any people sent there. They did not need them at the beginning because there were fewer accidents. But we did was incredible, they did not need them. Turned out they were there and ready. They have an expression, ready, willing and able. We were ready, willing and able. What the army corps of engineers did was incredible. What fema did was incredible, what the doctors did. I got a call a few days ago from the mayor of new york. Could you help us even more with medical personnel . Doctors,t was 448 nurses and respiratory experts. I got a call from the mayor and he said i want to tell you, these people are incredible. They lifted the spirits of the hospital workers from new york city like nothing i have seen. It was unbelievable, really appreciated. I let them know that, the military people. They went in, so brave, incredible. They lifted the spirits of everybody. We did all this work, but when you read the phony stories nobody acknowledges this. It does not have to be acknowledged from my standpoint, but it does have to be acknowledged from the great work these doctors, nurses, the army corps of engineers, fema, all these people have done an incredible job and they should not be abused. You take a look at what has happened. Nobody is asking for ventilators except outside of our country. They aref our country, calling me, so many countries. I want to help them because we have thousands being built. But nobody is asking for ventilators, nobody is asking for beds because we built 20,000 beds in a period of a couple weeks. The job they have done is incredible. That said i am getting along well with the governors. Mike pence had a call today with governors and it was like a 10. He used one of my expressions, he said it was leica 10. I am sure you guys were on the call though you are not supposed to be, in somebodys office listening. For weeks those calls have been very good. But there was not a raised voice, not even a Statement Like we think you should do this. It was just a perfect phone call. It might not be reported that way. I thought that somebody may be slightly did not even raise a voice. I want to get back to why we are here. Treated thesenot incredible people who have done such a great job fairly. We were way ahead of schedule. Remember this because the times story was a fake. Everything we did i was criticized because i was too early. If i wentd longer, way earlier, three months earlier, i wouldve been criticized. Said, weof that being understand it. I have educated a lot of people as to the press. I would love to say we have an honest press. There would be nothing i would be more proud of if the press would work. I do not mind being criticized, but not when they are wrong, not when people have done a great job. I have never seen a video like that played in this room. It looked a bit like a campaign ad. Who produced that . Pres. Trump a group in the office. We just put some clips together. I will bet you i have over 100 more clips even better, they were just pieced together over the last two hours. That is nothing compared to some. This was produced here in the white house . Pres. Trump by dan and a couple people, put together in a period of less than two hours. . Why . Pres. Trump because we have fake news and i want to correct it. We have the governors of california, new jersey, new york. In new york we worked very close with andrew. Ventilators were going to be a problem, they did not have a problem. They got tremendous numbers of ventilators. Beds were going to be a problem. I am happy about it. The Javits Center is almost empty because they do not need them. We brought in the boat, the helpers, the comfort. It was originally not supposed to be for this, the coronavirus. They called and said, could we have it a number of weeks ago. If you need it we will do it. Then they said could you get medical personnel to run the Javits Center . Could you get medical personnel to run the ship . If it is necessary, we will. There were medical personnel, in ones mayor de blasio made his statement spirit he was so impressed with them and i am, too. The level of genius and bravery, they are great people, the military people. We pieced that together. I would say it takes took less than two hours. This was produced by government employees, people at the white house, this campaignstyle pres. Trump i would not say produced, i would say clips. That is to keep you honest. I do not think it will work, have any impact. You heard the clips, heard what i said. They set i acted late on closing down the country . Some people wished we never closed it down. If we did not, we would have lost hundreds of thousands of people. Everything we did was right. You think everything you did was right . Pres. Trump governors should have had ventilators, they chose not to have them. We chose to get them ventilators. Ventilators. The surge is supposed to be coming now. If they do need ventilators, we have almost 10,000 that are ready to rock. We have people standing with those ventilators right now. If you needed 2000 in new york, which you dont, but if you did, we could have them here in less than 24 hours. This was a great military and beyond operation. Back to thet regular. We could talk about this, but all i am doing is this. Those are four or five clips i played for you. I could have given you hundreds of people gavin was on Television Two days ago with one of your competitors, singing praises. The question was asked in a negative way. He said look, i know what you want me to say, but he has been really good. It is hard for me to say that, in fact, it is impossible for me to say that, gavin newsom, the governor of california. I have clips from anthony that i did not want to put up which were really good. I think anthony would be the first to say, when i closed the country to china, when i closed the china ban, anthony said i saved a lot of lives by doing that. Am i correct . I do not want to put words in anthonys mouth. Someone said they thought i was going to fire him. I am not going to fire him. [indiscernible] pres. Trump i retweeted somebody who said fire. You retweeted it even though it said time to fire. Pres. Trump i was called about that, i set i am not firing. You ask your friends in the office, the Public Relations office, i was immediately called upon that. I said no, i like him, he is terrific. Not everybody is happy with anthony, not everybody is happy with everybody. I will tell you we have done a job the likes of which nobody has done. The mobilization, getting of equipment. Nobody has ever done a job like this. We have 50 governors and territories, by the way. 50 governors and territories and many of those governors are democrats and they cannot find anything to complain about. Honestly, many of them did not do their jobs. I may let you know who is not doing their job. I can tell you who is doing good, republicans and democrats, and the ones who do not nor do not know what they are doing. They should have had their own stockpiles. If they want we can build them stockpiles of ventilators. The hardest thing is a ventilator because it is expensive and takes a while to get. We got them and nobody believed we did. Many governors were asking for far too many. You said and said, very strongly they do not need them and do not need that many beds. You and dr. Fauci on the same page . Pres. Trump yes, we have been since the beginning. If i put somebodys opinion up i do not mind controversy. I think controversy is a good thing, not a bad thing. But i wanted to be honest controversy. I got a call not very quickly, nobody saw it as any big deal, they said how are you doing with dr. Fauci . I said, i am doing great. Dr. Fauci asked one of the people if he could get up and speak and he did. And they totally misinterpreted him. He said the question was hypothetical but he was acknowledging lives had been saved more lives would have been saved in mitigation practices had been put into place earlier. That seems obvious. Pres. Trump but how could you have done it . Up, you haveose it no deaths and no cases january 11 11 . Doctor, would you recommend closing the United States of america . How many deaths do we have . None. Ban before i did the i did a ban on china, you think that was easy . Then i did a ban on europe and many said it was an incredible thing to do because you look at spain. We are doing very well because when you look at those flat graphs and added up, the united p, the is add it u United States is doing well. , january, no deaths 11, no deaths. No cases, no deaths. In the middle of march, could you closed it earlier . Pres. Trump i closed it down from china. By the way, some people think i should have waited longer and maybe ridden it out. I disagree. It was an alternative. I will give you the good news. Iti would have done that, would have been catastrophic because the numbers are 1. 6 to Million People would have died. Cut it in half. Do not say 2. 2. Say one Million People died, that is much more than the civil war. Cut that in half, 500,000 people would have died. That number we would have reached. That would have been easy to reach if we did nothing, so we did the right thing and our timing was very good. But here is the one thing and you have to say this, when you ask me why did you do this . How come when i did the ban on china and instituted very tough things, how come nancy pelosi a month later is in chinatown saying, lets march, this is not going to happen . Come we have experts from cnn and other networks, many other places, all saying, he does not need to do it . All i am saying is this, how do you close down the greatest economy in the history of the world when on january 17 you have no cases and no deaths . 21 you have one case and no deaths . I am supposed to close down the country . I instituted the ban and joe biden went crazy and said you do not need the ban. He did not even know what the ban was, so he did not go crazy. He did call me xenophobic, he called me a racist because he has since apologized and said i did the right thing. Every democrat thought i made a mistake. I saved tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of lives. The argument is you bought yourself a time but did not prepare hospitals or ramp up testing. Pres. Trump it is so disgraceful the way you say that. Listen, i just went over it. [indiscernible] unprecedented crisis. Pres. Trump nobody thought we should do it and when i did it what did you do with the time you bought . Pres. Trump what do you do when you have no cases in the whole United States . You reported it. Zero cases, zero deaths on january 17. What did your Administration Due in february from the time of the travel ban . Pres. Trump a lot and we will give you a list. We did a lot. You know you are a fake, you know that, your whole network, the way you cover it is fake. Not all of you, but the people are wise to you, that is why you have a lower Approval Rating then you have had before times probably three. Let me ask you this. Why did biden apologize . Why did he write a letter of apology . It is not important. Pres. Trump why did the democrats think i acted too quickly . They really thought i acted too quickly. We have done a great job. I could have kept it open and i could have done what some countries are doing. They are getting beat up pretty badly. I could have kept it open. I thought of keeping it open because no one has ever heard of closing down a country let alone the United States of america, but if i would have done that we would have had hundreds of thousands of people that would right now be dead. And we done this right really have done this right. The problem is, the press does not cover it the way it should be. One more question. There is debate over what authority you have to order the country to reopen. Pres. Trump i have the ultimate authority but we will get to that in a minute. We will finish this up, tell you about other things we have done right. We saiday this, had lets not do a closing, whether it is 2. 2 million protected or to million, you cut it down 600,000, take just a fraction of the number that could have happened, it literally would have been more than the civil war. It would have been a disaster. The minimum number was 100000 and i feel pretty good that we are going to be substantially below the 100,000. Today the department of health announcing five new contracts to procure large numbers of additional ventilators under the defense production act, which we use a lot. Weaddition to the 1300 received today. We received today 1300 additional ventilators. We probably will not need them, but we can add them to our stockpile and move them around should the surge take place. We are ready to rock. The contracts are with general vyair,c, resmed, combined with the dpa contracts with General Motors and phillips and two others with hamilton and zol. 1690 ventilators added to the Strategic National stockpile to which we have already close to 10,000. This will be added by me 8. Another 29,000 by the end of may and more than 129,000 total by the end of the year. We will help other countries, help states if they need it. We may help some states stockpile. They are supposed to buy their own. Unfortunately most of the states were not there. People did not want to talk about it. We will talk about it at the right time if you want to. I am more focused on getting past this nightmare of an epidemic or pandemic, whatever you call it, we have to get past it read nobody you who has not needed nobody who has needed a ventilator has not gotten a ventilator. The state should have had them. No one who has needed a ventilator has not gotten a ventilator. No one who has needed a hospital bed has been denied a hospital bed. That is not even really a responsibility. If we are going to help, we will do it. That is where the army corps of engineers did such a good job. We built over 20,000 beds, thousands more than we needed, to be safe. They rose to this incredible occasion. We built more beds than we thought. We thought in louisiana we were going heavy. When i called the governor i said maybe we should not build that second hospital. He said, i do not think we are going to need it. They had 1000 rooms, 1000 beds and they load they used a lot of them. They stopped it because they do not want to waste. We are prepared to build thousands more should we need it. It looks like we are plateauing and in many cases coming down. In addition we ordered a total of 16 mobile decontamination systems. Fromecontamination system ohio is an incredible thing because it takes the masks and up to 20 times you can decontaminate a mask. I have been asking from the beginning, why cant we sterilize and sanitize these masks . It turns out we can. A Great Company in ohio sent us great equipment and they are doing that now. Now we are going to have more than 33 million n95 masks per week. They will be cleaned, decontaminated and it will be great. It is something that frankly people should have thought of a long time ago. Five more flights landed as part of the air bridge. A massive airlift operation to bring personal protective equipment into the United States, which has now delivered nearly half a million n95 masks, 37 million0 gloves, millions of gloves and 4. 99 million gallons. We have millions of gallons, gloves, masks, surgical equipment, should the states need it. Be buying supposed to their own stuff, but should they need it, we will give it. You saw the stories. I inherited this aministration, we inherited stockpile where the cupboards were bare. There was nothing and i will say it again, just like we did not have ammunition we did not have medical supplies, ventilators, a lot of things that should have been. You can read your own stories on that because you know what happened. They did not want to spend the money but we did. Today we facilitated the supply of more than 38 million n95 masks nationwide. This week we will send 2 million n95 masks to the commonwealth of pennsylvania. The Vice President will go into more detail. He has great detail on that and it is a Pretty Amazing story. We have a lot of masks already in stock and more coming. Medical expanding personnel surge capacity. We have a portion of certain v. A. Hospitals and nonveteran coronavirus patients concluding new jersey Orange Medical Center and in manhattan and brooklyn. They are ready, beautiful. Hopefully we will not need many. We built everything the governors wanted and in many cases it is too much. We wanted to err on the side of caution. The United States has conducted 3 million test for the virus. 3 million, the most of any nation. We are performing approximately 115,000 tests every day and our rate of testing is especially high in areas hardest hit by the virus. Someu look, it has hit areas pretty hard. Per capita testing in new york is higher than the rest of the world. Are currently validating several Antibody Tests that will allow us to determine whether someone has already had the virus and potentially become immune to infection. We are looking at that, the Antibody Tests are going to be very interesting over the next short while. A lot of things are being developed as we speak. In the race to develop effective treatments the Drug Company Gilead announced its drug remdesivir has shown very, sing results in compassionate use settings. In addition the fda granted authorization for device that removes certain proteins from the bloodstream, possibly preventing a patients immune system from overreacting to the virus and damaging vital organs. Over the last seven days my administration deployed 28 million doses of hydroxychloroquine from our national stockpile. We have millions of doses we bought. Many people are using it all over the country. Just recently a friend of mine told me he got better because of the use of that drug. Who knows. You combine it with zpack, combine it with zinc. Having some very good results. Think if anyone recommended it other than me it would be used all over the place. I think the fact i recommended it said it back a lot, but a lot of good things are happening, good tests. Scientists are pursuing a blood therapy known as convalescent plasma. Antibodiesy uses from the blood of recovered patients to treat those who are sick. This is something that is a very old procedure done in a very modern way. During this difficult time we are working to ensure the 2020 census is completed safely and accurately. We may be asking for an extension because obviously they cannot be doing much right now. They were not even be allowed to do it. The census will be asking for a major delay. How can you possibly be knocking on doors for a long period of time . The Census Bureau did a decision to delay data Data Collection activities to stop the spread. While millions of americans continue to complete their questionnaire online, the Census Bureau asked congress for an extension. God, a called an act of 120ation that i think days is not nearly enough. I am taking bold action to help American Workers. Friday they started receiving cash payments, a historic to trillion dollar relief bill. By the end of the week nearly 80 million americans will receive a total of 147 billion. From what the secretary of the treasury tells me, it is going nicely. He will be speaking in a moment. These payments go directly into the banks in the Bank Accounts of these people. Millions of additional payments will follow. Typical family of four will receive 3400. Through our paycheck protection program, a tremendous success, and they should extend it and increase it, this has been a tremendous success. So successful the banks are taking longer to distribute the money, but it is going rapidly. We now processed over 200 billion dollars in loans to help Small Businesses retain workers. We urgently need lawmakers to set aside the partisan agendas and replenish this program with it has been anse incredible success and they need more money to keep it going to take care of these businesses and keep them open. I want to thank the many governors, health professionals, scientists and Business Leaders for their incredible hard work and input over the last month. Even long beyond a month, i would say. Seems like forever. I have been having many discussions with my team and top experts. We are close to completing a plan to open our country hopefully even ahead of schedule. That is so important. We will soon finalize new and important guidelines to give governors the information they need to start safely opening their states. Plan andstrations corresponding guidelines will give American People the confidence to begin returning to normal life. That is what we want. We want to have our country open, we want to return to normal life. Our country will be will reopen and successfully. We will explain over a short number of days what it will be. As you have probably heard, we have developed a committee, calling in a number of committees with the most prominent people in the country, successful people in various fields, we will announce it tomorrow. We also help to facilitate an agreement among the 23 nations of opec plus. That is opec plus Additional Energy producing nations, representing many of the largest oilproducing countries to stabilize oil markets. We have in fact, and you have seen, stabilization over the last few days. Together countries around the world were cut Oil Production by approximately 20 billion barrels. 20 Million Barrels a day. That will help a lot with saving jobs all over texas and oklahoma and north dakota and many of other big any big energy states. Nearly 11 million American Workers supported by the u. S. Oil and gas industry. It is a monumental agreement. I want to thank saudi arabia, the crown prince of saudi arabia. I want to thank president putin of russia. I want to think a very good friend of mine, the president of flexibility, great president lopez obrador. Andhowed great flexibility tremendous intelligence, doing what he did. It was not easy. I want to thank mexico and the president. This is a very historic deal. Time, challenge, we are in a time unlike we have been in many decades, we are strengthened and sustained by the bonds of love and loyalty that unite all americans. I am so proud of the American People. Everywhere you look you see the patriotism of our country. Doctors and nurses on the front ands, food supply workers, every citizen achieving victory of the virus. That is what is going to happen, sooner than people think. We will be very smart about it, safe about it. We will listen to great doctors and medical professionals. Together we are beating back the invisible enemy and paving the ay for great resurgence, great resurgence of american prosperity. Our country wants to go back to work. They will go back safely. I would like to ask Vice President pence to say a few words followed by dr. Fauci and dr. Birx. I think before we do this, because i know there is an emergency where they want i will ask steve to come up, treasury secretary of the treasury. Tell them the success we are having. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. President , Vice President. As you announced we are very pleased we are ahead of schedule on delivering the Economic Impact. This is known as checks in the deliver int to direct deposit. This is ahead of schedule. We started processing those last friday. We expect over 80 million hardworking americans will get the direct deposit by this wednesday. We know how important that is to all those hardworking americans, many of which are at home not working at the moment. If you do not receive them by wednesday, on wednesday will be gov, go to getrs. Your payment. If you filed a tax return in 2018 or 2019, have that information available. Youll be able to id yourself, put in your direct deposit information and in several days we will automatically deposit the money into your account. We want to do as much of this electronically as we can. It is very important in this day and age. It is more secure and you do not have to go to the bank. If you are a Social Security beneficiary you do not have to do anything, youll get a direct deposit. If you have not filed and did not need to file a 2018, 2019 return, you can go to irs. Gov right now and enter your information and authenticate yourself. We are pleased that is ahead of schedule. I would like to announce the progress we are making on the new sba program, the p. P. P. It is a brandnew program that is one week old. We have distributed and 30 billion of loans to lenders participating. That is multiples of anything the sba has ever done. I want to thank the broadbased Community Banks participating, 4600 if you have not gotten it, you will get it processed this week. Let me also comment for the states. Were distributing half the money this week to the states, a week ahead of time. We will deliver the other half of the money to the states next week. Let me finally comment, we have been working closely with the federal reserve. Last week we announced expanded facilities and new facilities that totaled 2. 2 trillion in liquidity. I would like to highlight a mainstream Lending Facility for companies between one worker and 10,000 people, midsized businesses. Also, a municipal facility for states and local governments to access funds given the shortages they have. With that i am happy to answer questions. Thank you, sir. Speaker pelosi and minority inder schumer are negotiations on additional funding for business loans. Leader mcconnell said there was nothing to be added to the package, Small Business loans. What is the opinion of your administration . Should there be orchestrating or just Small Businesses . This was a Bipartisan Program. This sba program was not a Republican Program or democrat program. It was a Bipartisan Program we have committed to Small Businesses. We should top off that program now. I know democrats want to talk about more money for hospitals and states. We are just sending money out to hospitals and states. They have not come close to using that money. The president and Vice President said once we get s. B. A. Done we can go to another funding bill, potentially adding infrastructure. There is a likelihood we will need more money. We will sit down and try to get a bipartisan bill. It is important we deliver on Small Businesses. 50 of the people work for Small Businesses. What is the emergency the president said you had to go for . Over this bill . Mr. Mnuchin because we do not want to run out of money, we billion out of the 350 billion. We do not want to run out of money or create panic. We have asked for another 250 billion for that program. Every dollar we spend in this program we save a dollar of unemployment insurance. Even though we are asking for 250 billion, it will not cost that much. There were concerns about lifting guidelines too much too soon. I understand the economic argument for getting people back to work but what is the economic risk of lifting them to early and seeing a spike in cases . Mr. Mnuchin there are Economic Risks in both directions. Overviewed a broad list of 100 Business People that will help advise the president on what needs to be done to reopen the economy. The combination of Economic Impact payments, Small Business payments, and unemployment insurance, the president made clear he want to make sure hardworking americans have liquidity while we wait to open the government. Do you believe the country should be reopened on may 1 . Mr. Mnuchin i had discussions with the president , i believe he is considering it. Pres. Trump everything has to be safe. Your advice to the president . Mr. Mnuchin as soon it is safe to open, based upon the medical professionals we are working closely with the president and outside Business Leaders to develop a plan. [indiscernible] you think it is going to be everything open . Pres. Trump over the next few days we will probably be making a statement about exactly what that looks like. I want to get advice. We have some of the biggest from every business on this counsel council. We are setting up a lot of committees, very smart people. We want to be very safe. At the same time, we have got to get our country open. Is there a possibility you open it incrementally . Do you think people will go back to restaurants, concerts, cinema . Pres. Trump yes. I think eventually they will do that. It is going to go quickly. To workant to go back and there is pentup demand. That is why you see the stock market to think the stock market is at the level it is right now with all of this. Look at the European Union, how badly decimated they have been. Look at china, by the way. I have seen the numbers. Look at how these countries have been decimated by this. To think the stock market is at this tremendously high number. It was looking bleak for a while but it hit a point. It is a great tribute to the fact there is demand. In regards to some of your tweets earlier today, my question to you is, what provision in the constitution gives the president the power to open or close state economies . Pres. Trump numerous numerous provisions. We can give you a legal brief if you want. What happens if you say we want states to reopen but california or new york do not reopen . Pres. Trump i think everybody wants to open. I do not think that would happen. [indiscernible] ordered businesses like restaurants i wanted to, i would have closed it up, but i let them. I like the way they have done that. The center that remained in semilocked down, if you look at those states, they have done a good job. They are much different from new york or other places that were hit hard. Will you say, i order you to open your schools . Following up on that there of states,nsortiums west coast, east coast states, people who said they are going to cooperate and decide when to reopen. Does that undermine what you are trying to do . Pres. Trump they can decide. No, not at all. The president of United States has the authority to do what the president has the authority to do, which is very powerful. The president of the United States calls the shots. If we were not here for the states he wouldve had a problem like you have never seen before. We were here to back them up and we have more than backed them up. We did a job nobody thought was possible. That said we will work with states because it is important. You have local governments pinpointed. It is like a microchip, they are pinpointed. We have local governments that hopefully will do a good job and cannot do not, they anything without the approval of the president. Some states refused to reopen, all powers that do not reside in the president reside in the states. Pres. Trump i would like to see that person run for election. Pres. Trump they have to get open. Some are in a different situation. I wont name states now, but i will over the next two or three days. You have some states where this is not the kind of problem it is a new york or louisiana or michigan or other places that got hit very hard. Illinois got hit very hard. Want open as soon as possible, but they want to open safely and so do i. President said they will stay shut down into the middle of may. Pres. Trump france got hit very hard. He has to do what he has to do. Spain has been decimated. You look at what happened in italy, it is a wellknown fact what happened in italy. They were hit hard. A question for secretary mnuchin. Have00 Business People, they been invited already or agreed . Mr. Mnuchin they have not been invited yet, we just reviewed the names. From all sectors . Mr. Mnuchin verticals, every area of the economy, we want to be representative. Is there anything needed to be done to work on saving Oil Industry Jobs . Mr. Mnuchin we are working with larry kudlow, we have economic plans for every single part of the economy. In the case of the oil industry they have been hit especially hard because you have both the supply issue and the demand issue. Use bailout money for the airlines . Mr. Mnuchin i am pleased to say we worked very hard. Thatt out a press release we have now had discussions with almost all the airlines, i personally had discussions with all the Major Airline ceos area ceos. Ceeo quickly see very decisions coming out. I am pleased with the discussions we had. See a need for pres. Trump excuse me one second. We had very good discussions with the owners. Is it possible to reopen the economy on may1 . Pres. Trump youll be hearing over the next few days. [indiscernible] another stimulus . Mr. Mnuchin congress on a bipartisan basis approved an unprecedented amount of money to help American Workers and american business. It was through no fault of their own business was closed down. We have been diligently executing on that. Everybody said it would take months. We are executing very quickly. We created a whole new sba program in a week. We want to execute the 2. 2 trillion and we can add several trillion with the fed. The area we are concerned about is the Small Business program. It is more popular and successful than we anticipated. The president wants to be clear we have money for that. Once we get done with that we will review with the president. If there is more money then needs to be to support this economy, hardworking americans, we will work with congress. Four, the president has talked about infrastructure, medical issues. We will monitor that. We want to make sure there are incentives for restaurants, entertainment, people to get back to those kinds of things. We will look specifically at ways to stimulate parts of the economy. Some may be many issues, some may be regulatory issues. To clarify your understanding of your authority, visavis governors. If a governor issues stayathome when somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total and that is the weight is going to be. The governors know that. [indiscernible] pres. Trump you have a couple of democrat governors, but they will agree to it. The authority of the president of the United States having to do with the subject we are talking about is total. One of the things we saw in your video, the travel ban from europe. As part of reopening america do you want to reopen the borders so people from europe and the u. K. Pres. Trump very good question. I would have to take a look. I would not say italy or spain is doing great right now. We just heard france is expanding its stay inside order. Period ofr a short time. Right now we have a very strong ban. We will keep it that way until they heal. Weeks, months . Pres. Trump i cannot tell you right now. France just went for another two weeks. You took his advice on the question of mitigation. How do you make this next decision . Not sure whoi am gave me the advice on the van ban. I think i took my own advice. The social distancing. This next decision you say may be the most difficult or important decision of your presidency. Will you assure the American People you will take advice of dr. Fauci, dr. Birx, the Health Experts, before you do that . Pres. Trump i will absolutely take their advice. Would you go against their recommendation if they say you need another 15 or 30 days . Pres. Trump we are not far from being on the same page. One thing Governor Cuomo Governor Cuomo said states purchase cant diagnostic equipment and need federal help. Pres. Trump they are on ground. They have local mayors, local representatives, people that do it and what we did last time is unprecedented. Industryt a whole because we inherited nothing. What we inherited from the Previous Administration was totally broken, which someone should eventually say, not only where the cupboards bare, but we inherited broken testing. Now we have great testing. I just left the top executives at abbott. Do, unless you have further questions for the secretary of the treasury, do you have anybody for steve . If it is for me, we can wait. We have to get back to work. When of my colleagues is not able to be in the room. They are curious about the rule that prevents small casinos from getting some of this relief. Is that something you are taking a look at . Is there going to be a change . Casinoschin not small but there are things such as small taverns and restaurants that have literally small gaming things and we are coming out with some Additional Guidance on that. It is not small casinos. There was a letter House Republicans sent this weekend about the liquidity for mortgage services. Can you explain what you were looking at . Sec. Mnuchin i think i commented on this a week or so ago. We had a subcommittee task force that specifically studied this issue. We have all the the appropriate people on it. Action. Taken some we had conversations with the fh fa about what they will do for fannie and freddie and to the extent they need authority from the treasury we will accommodate that. We are aware of the issue. We have been studying the issue before covid and had concerns about some of these nonbank servicers not being well capitalized. We will make sure the market functions properly. Thank you. We have seen a number of these relief bills democrats and republicans have pushed forward. There noncoronavirus specific funding priorities, are you trying to keep funding specific to coronavirus and is there going to be other additions, like a change to labor rules or something many on wanted . Some on the right are wondering if you should be pushing for their preferred path. Sec. Mnuchin our expectation has been mrs. Covid related. Some people have a broad view of what covid related is because it impacted almost every cycle business. Thepresident talked about kennedy center, a good institution. Obviously that wasnt the major priority but they were hit with covid related. But the president instructed, we want to be very specific in the next bill. It is covid related items. Pres. Trump that was done, the democrats we didnt want that but they wanted it in and we had to agree to get something done for the workers. We want this to be for the workers and for companies that employ the workers. That is what we are looking for. We are not looking for extraneous nonsense. You argued the china ban was to if too disruptive sec. Mnuchin i had nothing to do with the china ban. I think i was traveling at the time. I never, i was not part i did become very active after the china ban but that report in the New York Times was not accurate. I was not part of the task force at that time and i was not involved. I think i may have been traveling. Senator said they would get direct payments to employers to offpeople who had been laid. Did you support that . Ppp,mnuchin that is the sending money to Small Business, 50 of American Workers, to keep those people paid. It is the most efficient way. Less dollar, it is one dollar of unemployment and we want those people to have, to be associated with the business so as soon as the president is ready to open up the economy, those businesses are together. We want we dont want those businesses to fall apart. Syndicate indirectly to states pres. Trump we were preferring it would be sent directly to the people. The democrats wanted it sent through the unemployment system. We have 40yearold equipment and many of those systems. They are run by the states. Are mnuchin some of them and some of the states arent and we encourage, we are working with the states to update their computers. It is a long haul. Thank you. Sec. Mnuchin phase pres. Trump phase four, steve. You said when someone is president of the United States their authority is total. That is not true. Pres. Trump you know what we are going to do . It is not going to be necessary because the governors need us one way or the other because ultimately, it comes with the federal government. That being said, we are getting along well with the governors and i feel certain that there wont be a problem. Has any governor agreed that you have the authority does to decide when their state pres. Trump i havent asked anybody because i dont have to. Who told you president has absolute authority of pres. Trump enough. Governor hogan wants 500 billion to stabilize shortfalls. Pres. Trump we appreciate Governor Hogans statement. Governor cuomo said [indiscernible] it theakh to ignore budgetary shortfall the cares act ignored the budgetary for fall shortfall. Pres. Trump they are talking about states that have been battered and hospitals. We are willing to look at that. What we come back with. They are talking about states and they are talking about hospitals. Michigan onnor of thursday filed an executive order banning the sale of nonessential goods. She has banned the sale of nonessential goods. Many are calling this to coney and and unconstitutional. Do you think if other states followed her example in the coming weeks, the federal government should intervene . Pres. Trump idol think that is good happen. I think it is extreme but she is doing at and i think it will be over before we have to start thinking about it too much. It is strong, it is a strong position to take. They are making a lot of progress in michigan, so we will see how it works. The funding for the world health organization, what is the status . Pres. Trump im not happy with the world health organization. With the World Trade Organization. We have been ripped off by everybody. This country for so many years has been ripped off i everybody, whether it is Growth Health or world trade. I call them the bobbsey twins. For years we had people who did nothing about it. We will have a report and we are talking about the wto. We made a lot of progress. We are winning cases for the first time because they know i will leave if we dont get treated fairly. This country, our country, was at a point where we rarely if with the to lawsuits World Trade Organization but now we are winning a lot of them. We will pull out if we have two. We just won a 7 billion lawsuit which was very nice. Do you expect a decision this week on cutting funding . Pres. Trump by the end of the week i will make a decision. Right now there is a lot of things happening. Why are there no caps on sequences for china, for the misinformation . Pres. Trump how do you know there are no consequences . What are the consequences . Pres. Trump why would i tell you . You started off by saying why are there no consequences. Why are there no consequences pres. Trump how do you know . You will find out. I wouldnt tell you. You would be the last person on earth i would tell. This is a question for mr. Vice president. Do you agree with the president s statement and his understanding of federalism that his power is total deck of is there anything you would like to add . Vice president pence i support the president s leadership under the National Emergency declaration he signed. We are standing before you for the first time in history when all 50 states have issued emergency declarations and the territory. Time inan unprecedented the life of the nation. The president as reflected and our Health Experts will continue to reflect, because the American People have heeded the president s guidelines for america because thosegovernors have taken and implemented them, even in states where there was not a significant outbreak, and implemented additional measures as we provided them with data about cases and best practices, we are making Real Progress as a country. [indiscernible] Vice President pence in the long history of this country, the authority of the president of the United States, during national emergencies, is unquestionably plenary. You can look back through times of war and other national emergencies. As the president said, we will happily brief that but in the days ahead, what the president has charged us to do is to work with our Health Experts, we will bring together an Extraordinary Group of american Business Leaders to counsel the president , and working with the cdc, we are going to produce new guidelines based upon the data for every state and territory in this nation. We are going to give them guidance, and as the president indicated, we will continue to respect the leadership and partnership we forged with every governor in america. But this is an unprecedented time. I have to tell you, when you look at the fact, despite the heartbreaking loss of more than 22,000 americans, when you look at the fact of what the Health Experts told us this could be, i a sense offeel gratitude to the American People. Gratitude to the Extraordinary Team that has counseled this president , the steps President Trump has taken, the policies that governors have implemented across america. We were discussing today up a task force that when you look at the European Union as a whole, they have nearly three times the mortality rate of the United States today. That is a tribute to our Extraordinary Health care workers, their dedication, their tireless work. It is a tribute to the fact that the American People put into practice the mitigation efforts that the president counseled the nation to do on the advice of our best scientists, now more than a month ago. Our hospitals were not overwhelmed and are not overwhelmed at this hour. And i have to tell you, standing here today, i couldnt be more proud to stand alongside this president and to be part of this team that has served the American People during this challenging our, and i will say to you, to every american looking on, as we see the numbers leveling and maybe even beginning to go down, i just encourage you to keep doing what theare doing because sacrifices americans have made through these mitigation efforts are saving lives and you are seeing our nation through the crisis. You have been talking to governors. In thee coalitions northeast and west coast, did they tell you what they will be announcing before they announce it . The president pence governor of connecticut expressed today they would be on aing and discussion regular on a regional basis what recommendations would be. We were reassured them today on our Conference Call with i think 48 governors that were with us today for the better part of an hour and a half, we told them that, what the president would directing to produce additional guidelines for the states, certified by the thosehat would inform governors and local communities and mayors about the best way forward, based on the unique circumstances those states and communities are facing. American people have seen the experience in washington state, where this all began, and in california, and the extraordinary challenges in the Greater New York city area including new jersey and connecticut, challenges in new orleans, louisiana, detroit, chicago, parts of houston. They are also seeing that in each one of those cases, the mitigation efforts are truly working. With those states, and in some cases it will make perfect sense for them to work together. Let them know ahead of time vice pres. Pence the president will be sorry, i didnt hear question. Did they let you know . Will we pres. Trump they will cooperate perfectly. Watch. Vice pres. Pence let me affirm, we heard it again today, and on what i think was our ninth Conference Call with governors, i think every american would be to see the partnership that this president has forged with governors across the country. It is an extraordinary statement and you will see some data when the admiral gets up in a few moments. The flow of resources from around the world that we moved into areas that have faced challenges, this president directed us to ensure that every state has what they need, when they need it. And the spirit i heard again from republicans and democrats governors today was reflective of their partnership. As we move forward to the president s goal of reopening america, we expect the same kind of partnership in the interest of the nation. If you can hear me through , the District Of Columbia argues they were shortchanged in the funding bill because they were treated as a territory instead of as a state. Will that be made right in phase for . Pres. Trump we are looking at that, certainly. I heard that complaint, but the may your seems to be happy with everything we have done. She was on today saying good things. You talked about this being the most difficult decision you will have to make about whether to reopen the economy. I wonder how much it weighs on your mind, if there is a second wave, you reopen the economy, you might have to shut things down again. Pres. Trump i hope that wont happen, but it does weigh on my mind. In the back, go ahead. Question from one of my colleagues who wasnt able to be here. China deployed an Aircraft Carrier in the South China Sea this weekend amid claims by Chinese State media that covid has refused [indiscernible] residents in the region. What responses are you thinking of . Will you have a response to this action . Pres. Trump china has their own difficulties. We have a relationship with china that we are not happy with certain things that happened over the last period of time. I have been explicit on that. But we know all about that and china, we have seen what they did and we have seen many other things they have done, both pro and con, and we will be just fine. Said the Economic Task force, you thought the recommendations were happening earlier than expected, did you mean to suggest it could be boom for before may 1 . Pres. Trump we will put out guidelines and recommendations fairly quickly, in a few days. Certain states are doing very well. Parts of the country are doing very well. They are doing really very well. We will put out recommendations and guidelines very soon. Will they fit each area or will they be pres. Trump right now we have a very strong indication that we know pretty much, we have some good ideas. We will have videoconference or at least a Conference Call with a lot of good people having to do with certain fields, whether it is energy, entertainment and restaurants, etc. , we have to get papal back into restaurants people back into restaurants. It should be deductibility, you will get them back so fast. They used to have deductibility. The restaurant business, it was one of the hot is mrs. Then they ended it a long time ago, many years ago but we may need that to get people back into the restaurant. Obamah michelle advocated mailin voting is a possible solution. She said it shouldnt be a partisan issue. Have your advisors told you that could save lives . Pres. Trump absentee ballots . I dont know what she did. I didnt see that. When did that happen . Today . I wish her a lot of luck. There is a little bit of confusion about your phone calls yesterday with president putin. The kremlin says you discussed Current Issues of ensuring strategic security. That wasnt referred to in the white house readout. Can you enlighten us . Pres. Trump we discussed any things. We discussed china, we discussed many Different Things but it was primarily a call on the oil, as you can imagine. They were very helpful in stabilization of the number of barrels. I think the number will be closer to 20, maybe 15 but closer to 20 than it is to 10. I think it was an important call. I spoke with the king of saudi arabia and that was an important call and the bottom nine is opec plus, it is called opec plus because there are other states, other nations. We came to a good agreement. What was the part about strategic security. Pres. Trump mostly we were talking about china. We were talking about their borders. We were talking about our borders a little bit, our borders with mexico because as you know mexico was a big part of the deal. Mexico really, it was complex from the standpoint of mexico. It wasnt an easy deal. We appreciated a certain amount of flexibility but we talked about borders, china, mexico, we did talk about the arms, yes we did. That was an important part of the call. On abbott labs you said testing is going great. We know [indiscernible] some governors are saying they dont have the materials. Pres. Trump the governors have to get the materials. If they cant get it they will see us. About governors have to get the materials. They have machines. , they haveinto it powerful machines that they dont even know they have. Im talking about the governors. The have machines that are used for this, you know what i am referring to, very powerful machines where in a certain states case, they are only using 10 of their capacity and they didnt know it. That happens to be illinois. 15 minute testing, these new ones in the rose garden, they say including governor sununu, they dont have the cartridges to conduct the tests. When will they get the con the cartridges . Pres. Trump rapidly increasing the numbers. Rapidly increase. They have other machines where they can really work. And a lot of states have the big machines that can do a lot, they didnt even know they had them. They didnt even know they had them. Mike will be talking about that. Googlementioned the putting together a website where they would handle pres. Trump google and apple. Google and apple. A lot of people dont like it from the standpoint of constitutional rights. A lot of people dont like it and some people think it is great. They are working on it. Attesting website for google a testing website in googles only operating in five counties in california. Pres. Trump google is working with apple on something. We have the greatest companies in the world looking at rings that, in a year from now, everything we will be looking at now we will be obsolete. How good it is. I saw a presentation today that i cant talk about yet but it is incredible. Tony, i think they are doing well on the vaccines, working hard on the vaccines and i think you will have an answer for vaccines. I believe there are great things coming out with respect to that. You need testing but you will have some great things. You are saying google and apple are doing pres. Trump this is the google and apple. I dont know if it is a partnership or what but they are working on more than one element. They are working on a couple things, google and apple. Google is working on something having to do with testing. I believe they are doing that in a singular fashion. I question is at about the drivethrough testing website. , they have tracing this process where they can put contacts, if you opt in you can be alerted if you have been in contact with someone with coronavirus. Amazingump that is an thing but people have big constitutional problems with it. It is an amazing thing. Be, otherctually countries are thinking about using something similar but not as good. Other countries are thinking pres. Trump i heard singapore is. Singapore had a setback because they had a break. But they will take care of it. I know folks in singapore that andt that what rate job it will put it back quickly. Singapore and other countries are looking at other things and some countries are doing other things. Would you prefer americans get. Trump i dont want to into that because we have more of a constitutional problem than a mechanical problem but we will making a determination on that. Will besomething we discussing with a lot of people over the next four weeks. A lot of people have a problem with it. Question, a testing question, can you talk about the antibodies pres. Trump moving along quickly, moving along well. It is a test that has been going along for many years except now we have very modern, incredible versions of it. That is moving along. The Antibody Test is moving along very well. Anymore covid19 . Covid19. [indiscernible] Theodore Roosevelt has died. Pres. Trump that is going through the navy. The navy is going to be making decisions on that. I dont think the ship should have been stopping in vietnam when you have a pandemic, to be honest. I dont think the captain should have been writing letters. He is not ernest hemingway, as i said. I dont know who gave the orders to stop in vietnam, but they stopped in vietnam and all of a sudden, they get on and now you have over 500 sailors and people on the ship that are affected. I dont know whose idea that was the that wasnt a good idea in the middle of a pandemic. On the question of constitutionality, im wondering what changed your view. Pres. Trump nothing changes. The fact that i want to rely on states or maybe will or maybe that is onect thing. The fact that i dont want to use the power is another thing. Look. Look. The constitution says pres. Trump you can look at constitutionally, you can look at federalism, the fact that i dont want to exert my power is much different. We have the power. Does the federal government has have the power . It has absolute power as to whether or not i will use that power, we will see. I would rather work with the states because i like going down to a local government. That is why, i guess it is seven states, not eight, south went away from what we discussed last time. That is why i looked at the individual states, they are doing a good job. They are doing a very good job. I would rather have them make the decision. The fact that i would rather have, that is fine but i have the absolute right to do if i want to. I may not want to. We have a very good relationship. We will see what happens. If you notice a few states, they are all with democrat governors, but if governors are doing a good job and they control it better because you dont have someone in washington saying set up a testing site in the parking lot of a walmart, we are in washington and they are in a state that is very far away. That is really, it should have always been, i have always said it was. We have nowship with the states and governors is very good. We will be announcing over the next very short time exactly what we will be doing. Joe biden is the Presumptive Democratic nominee. Do you have any plans on when you will start, when the white house will share some of that information about coronavirus . Pres. Trump no one has called about coronavirus from their standpoint. Flu,had the h1n1, swine and that was a big failure. That was a tremendous failure. They had a lot of failures. History a look at the and 17,000 people died and you talk about late, they were so late, they were late like it never even existed. That was a big problem. It caused a lot of other people a big problem. If joe biden would like a briefing, i would certainly get him a briefing. I dont know what he would do with it. On the news task force, how would you [indiscernible] pres. Trump they are not. Go ahead. Conversation, there was the mention of multiple Different Task forces. Can you explain the structure . Pres. Trump my task is the White House Task force which brought up brought us up to this point brilliantly, dealt with governors and governors all on way through and i was many of those calls and every call got better and better. It was hostile in the beginning. By the time we finished, todays call was a very good call, very friendly call. I think everyone is online. You dont have anybody driving you crazy saying they are not getting ventilators and not getting, they need more beds, they have a lot of beds right now. We always come i think it is always on theare side of give them more, even when we didnt think we didnt think new york needed the beds they were asking for. We didnt think they neither the ventilators. We were right. On ventilators, we are ready to march. We have 10,000 ventilators, ready to move them anywhere in the country if we need them. We are also building a lot of goingators, and that is to be used at some point. We will have stockpiles including state stockpiles if they want to work out some kind of arrangement with us. We will also help other countries, italy and spain and france is having a big problem. They desperately need, germany, they need ventilators. We will have a lot of ventilators. Lot coming next week. Final question. [indiscernible] how the task force is going to be structured . Pres. Trump we have a number of committees. We will have a transportation committee, we are going to have a manufacturing committee. You will see it tomorrow. We are having a religious leaders committee. We have a great group of religious leaders. We will have committees with religious leaders. You have seen what has gone on with the churches and all of that. We will have a faith leaders committee. We are going to have a few committees, i will call them committees, and ultimately we will make decisions and we will make decisions fairly quickly and i think they will be the correct decision. Wendy do you want the Economic Task force to have recommendations . Pres. Trump soon. When you say form, i dont have to give them instructions. These are the best people in their fields. I dont have to say, we just met and we will meet in two weeks and here is i said, here is what i want. We have already told them. In variousmes businesses and professions and of thens comedies greatest names, the people i think probably know the best. We will be speaking to them very soon and we want them to have, if it is questions or statements, we want them to have that for us and we will have response or may become a ideally we will be learning from them and we will be able to do that and put everything we learned from those calls into our new guidelines so we will have new guidelines coming soon. I think it is going to be very good. I think it is going to be very smooth and i hope it is going to be very safe. Thank you all very much. Mine fors a friend of a long time. He is a great real estate person. He passed away, was a great real estate person, great, great. Sort of a legend in new york real estate. He called me a couple weeks ago, said he tested positive. Is in his early to mid 80s, i guess, and stanley went to the hospital and he never came out. E went into a coma he was unconscious for a long time and he never made it. A great man. He left very charitable, really a great philanthropist, very successful person in manhattan in the real estate business. So i got to know him a lot. When his excited friend from new york became the president of the United States. E was like a young boy and he was not a young boy, but he was like a young boy. He was so excited. He thought i would do such a good job and he was so happy and he was very proud of what we have done in this administration but he was tested positive and unfortunately, he didnt make it. It is a very sad thing. Thank you all very much. Thank you, mr. President. As the president mentioned, the task force today spoke to 48 of the nations governors. On that call we reflected on the fact that all 50 states had emergency declarations in place, which was a first for american history, five . 2 billion have been distributed to the states under the stafford act and it anda productive call reflective of President Trumps ongoing direction for us to work closely with the states to make sure the states in the areas most impacted by coronavirus have what they need when they need it. We spoke about the issue of testing and supplies, and i will ask dr. Deborah birx to come forward, as well as admiralty law check as well as the admiral to reflect on that for you. Dr. Birx has been leading the on rapidly expanding testing. It was early on that the theident formed Publicprivate Partnership with commercial labs and as we stand here today, more than 2. 5 million tests have been performed and when we add in the that we have labs to assume with reasonable protections projections, have not reported to the cdc, we think the number could be closer to 3 million tests that have been performed. The neween mentioned, 15 minute test, we are working closely with Abbott Laboratories and the president and our team met with them to rapidly increase the availability of cartridges. Abbott is producing roughly 50,000 cartridges a day. Supplyquired an initial of that and distributed those to the states but we are working with the states cannot only distribute what is being made but work with other suppliers to create additional cartridges. A point i will ask dr. Birx to expand on in a moment is the fact that beyond the new 15 what weest, beyond expect, a new Antibody Test which may well be approved by the fda in a matter of days, and Antibody Test that would be produced at the rate of 20 million tests a month, the those commercial laboratories that the president brought in here about a part of two months ago and initiated that public and private partnership with, have been producing hundreds of thousands. F tests every single week but as dr. Birx and our team have apprehended, we believe at of theint in time, that equipment that is out there that does the highspeed testing, we informed governors of this that some 20 of that capacity is not being used, and with regard to the abbott n2000 systems, we think 75 of that Laboratory Capacity that exists in the United States byay is not being utilized our governors. We sent a very clear message to out tors today to reach their hospitals and labs, to identify the presence of the supplies to get those activated. Literally asked him estimate, although we are doing over 110 thousand tests per day, the United States, that if our governors and state labs would simply activate the machines that are already there, we could double the amount of testing in the United States literally overnight. I know governors watch these briefings and we will remind them very respectfully again to identify those labs. Reaching team that is out to labs to make sure we can activate those labs. , ithe subject of supplies have said it a couple times from this podium today, but let me say that one more time, President Trumps direction to us in dealing with the states has been to make sure states have what they need when they need it. We recognize that while we all of thehe overall curve coronavirus in america, understandably the national numbers, the reality is, this outbreak has taken place in its own individual curve. First on the west coast, then the new york city area, then louisiana, michigan, and we continue to contend with it in chicago and houston and other metropolitan areas. It has given us the opportunity to ensure that personal protective equipment and ventilators are made available i haveitical basis and to tell you we are incredibly proud of the effort, the partnership with states that has , that nong here today one who has required a ventilator has been denied a ventilator in the United States of america. At this point, we have just short of 7000 ventilators in Strategic National stockpile but as the admiral will detail, we newlyginning to receive manufactured ventilators. We will get another 1000 in this week by the middle of may. We will literally have another 8000 ventilators available for deployment around the country. Im going to let him describe to you the specific detailing of want tosources, but i share these numbers, most especially for our Health Care Workers around the country, the areas most impacted by the , the resources are surging into the Hospital Systems at the point of the need, and we will continue to do just that. Let me recognize dr. Birx to reflect on the data and also on may be some comments on testing, then the admiral, if you would step up and describe supplies. We will hear from dr. Fauci again then take questions. Dr. Birx i dont know if we can get the first slide on cumulative cases, thank you so much. I want to show you a different way of looking at it today. Obviously we look at case counts per 100,000 americans in each of our states and metro areas. I wanted you to see an absolute number, how much the new yorknew jersey metro area dwarfs all other metro areas. Chicago, even see detroit, or boston. All of those metro areas are under 25,000 cases. You can see the new yorknew jersey metro area is almost 250,000, when you bring those cases together. That is why you hear us talking a lot about the metro area of new york and new jersey and the counties of rockland and westchester and suffolk and jersey,nd bergen, new and why we are focused on getting these sources to the metro area. If i take new york and new jersey metro area outcome of these are the other metro areas we have been tracking very closely. I wanted to show this to you so you could see how those curves are already starting to plateau. Detroit,ok at philadelphia, louisiana, louisiana is in green, detroit is in gray, you can see across the board, across these metro higher concentration of individuals. This is what the American People in these large cities have done, where it is more difficult often to socially distance. We are really impressed by the work of the mayors and the governors to make this happen. I also wanted you to see this because you can clearly see chicago and boston. Chicago is in the orange and boston is in the yellow. They are crossing detroit and that is why we have been very much focused on the needs of those areas. Also in that category, it is difficult for you to see them because they are much further down on the slide at the highest, if you look at the access on this slide the axis on this slide, was 20,000. On the other side it is 300,000. Each of these epidemics, the small epidemics in each of the metro areas, we are tracking independently, as well as any epidemics and outbreaks that are happening in other states. I wanted you to have that perspective of how significant the new yorknew jersey issue is and why we have been tracking that so closely. I also wanted to assure all the other states that we are tracking them also very closely. I am really working with the governors and mayors and that is why i wanted to see, not only are the curves flattening in major metropolitan areas but they are starting to decrease. This is what we are excited about. These are cases. We know mortality will lag and we are really tracking also the number of individuals who have succumbed to covid19. Wanted to note that yes, our mortality is less when you combine European Countries equal to the size of the United States, and i think this is really two things. Number one, the incredible work of the American People, and also the incredible work of our Health Career health care providers. The systems of each of these hospitals that have the resources and the ability to respond to the needs of the covid19 patients. You can really see the Superb Health care delivery that is happening by the low mortality. To mention quickly about testing, because you have heard me before talk about it and then it was a little bit misquoted and misaligned, but there are multiple abbott machines, i will be very clear, having spent years in the laboratory, the and the 8800 machines abbott m2000 are the machines that run between 500 and 1000 assays at a time. The Abbott Company worked really hard three weeks ago in getting one million tests out there to be utilized, and they can make a million tests a week for all of have theseories that platforms. So far to date, somewhere around 200 50,000 tests have been utilized in three weeks. That is why we have been appealing to the Laboratory Directors to bring all those machines. Last week dr. Fauci and his Incredible Team of researchers agreed to reach out and find and abbottroche highthroughput machines. They are in research, doing critical research, to bring them online to separate supplement the other laboratories, to create a mosaic and complete strategy that brings the highthroughput. Forms with the mediumthroughput that forms with the lowthroughput but rapid id now, which wont be the answer to number of tests we will need over the next few weeks. Those run a test every 15 minutes, and we can get about 55,000 cartridges and day cartridges per day. I just got done saying these other machines, of which we have hundreds, can run 5001000 in a single timeframe. We need to bring all of these a team has been created to call every laboratory and Research Institution across the United States to define the complete capacity in every single state, because it shouldnt be our expectation that every governor understands exactly everything that is in his state. We have to understand everything in every state to be able to meet the needs of the American People. As we increase testing. I know you all know that in three weeks, we went from 300,000 tests total to 3 million tests total. We have to further increase that. That has been done really by hhs and the admiral and the team up there and we will supplement that team to really bring on all of the Additional Resources and platforms that we have in the United States of america, just like we did with ventilators, to bring all of the capacity to bear so we can also continue to increase testing. Also, as these epidemics decrease, you can also be able to use more testing for surveillance. I want to call out the 19 states that arent represented in these graphics. By and large, the states have been containing. I have talked to many of those states and i would remind all of us, when i talk to each one of these state health officials, where they are finding outbreaks are in nursing homes. We really need to continue to intect and continued to test nursing homes, because we know that is a particularly Vulnerable Group and is is a groupware often, we are beginning to understand asymptomatic transition. No one intends to pass the virus to others but with essential workers around the young knighted states the United States, people are unknowingly passing the virus on. Those are the ones that we are interested in finding. Howdy you find them, because they dont have symptoms . This is where we really have to increase surveillance in a deliberate and understanding way. We are looking at what our sentinel surveillance sites . We can see where there are outbreaks. When people have symptoms you can see them. We do sentinel surveillance so they can find them before they have symptoms. This is what we have done for decades in hiv and it is allowing us now to control the hivaids epidemic in Subsaharan Africa because we are finding arele when they asymptomatic and treating them when they are asymptomatic. This is something we are working closely with the cdc and others on to make sure we can bring that full capacity to the American People. These are some insights on what we are working on. We are continuing to track every single county and community. Finally, i will call on one additional group, there is a group out there of our hivaids activists and Community Workers that understand these tests i have been talking about, these theyased tests because often get viral loads in hiv. They will know how to explain this in the community about what it takes to run those. They are essentially virologists. They understand the antibody utilizeecause they those in hiv testing across the United States. Maybe it will be our translator to the American Public, and to their local mayors. They understand these tests, they are essentially understanding all the virology and immunology and i am asking all of them tell us communicate what these tests are so the community is ready for them, because Antibody Tests measure something very different than the viral load in the front of your nose that we are using for diagnosis. To understand all those tests, when and how to use them, will be critical but the great thing is in the United States, we have these community s that understand these tests and can discuss them with the community. To call the admiral in a moment but i have to call on dr. Fauci. Let me Say Something straight from my heart if i can. I lost my dad 32 years ago today, april 13 is always a tough day for our family. This morning when my brothers and sisters were sending pictures of dad like we always of i thought of the families the more than 22,000 americans that we have lost. I just want to tell you that you are in our hearts and you are in the prayers of millions of americans as you deal with this heartbreaking loss, as well as families that have family members that are struggling with serious illness. Let me encourage everyone in the , because the loss American People have been putting these mitigation measures into practice, there are families that are still together today. I just want to encourage you here at roughly the Halfway Point of 30 days to slow the spread, to take that to heart. The losses wemize have experienced as a nation and as families. , when you seeged vast numbers, on the majority of states that because of what the American People are is working, dr. Fauci and dr. Birx and the team continually ask us to remind the American People and we do so again today, keep doing what you are doing. 30 days to slow the spread. We will hasten the day that we heal our land. Dr. Fauci . Dr. Fauci i want to make one comment that related to a question that was asked and then we will have questions. The idea about how we would publice from ap early health standpoint about what i call reentry into some sort of normality, as help people i dont know anything about, nor do i claim to know anything about economics. There are people who know more than i do who will give advice about the committees the president was talking about. The one thing we do know is, as health people, as physicians and scientists and Public Health people, as i mentioned, over the weekend on one of these shows, some people may think it will be like a light switch, on and off, we are either out of or in. It is not going to be that way because we have a large country and there are different impacts. New york is very different from other parts of the country, from the midwest, from the mountain region, california and washington, different than new orleans. As we discuss and consider the Public Health aspects, it likely would be something i refer to as sort of like a rolling reentry. It wont be onesizefitsall. I dont know what is going to be yet because we still have time to look at it. Dr. Birx does an amazing job with showing you the data and the charts. That is going to likely influence some of the recommendations that we will make, but i can assure you, they will be recommendations that will be based on Public Health and the president will get a lot of other input from others but we will give the honest public Health Recommendations. The admiral has an update on supplies, then we will take a few questions. Can i have the ventilator slide back up . Thank you. You start with what is in the stockpile this morning and here that we will be delivering over the next few weeks. We had a thousand 600 ventilators added to the pool that we already have. That is the matthew get. The math you get. That is including the dpa action with gm and we have also issued what would be call rated orders with all these vendors to allow privileges, so to speak, within their supply chains. We have written a contract, this is the 100,000 plus ventilators we are talking about and we continue to work with them to ensure the ventilators actually show up so they continue to work there. As we did that, we realize downstream, supply chains need additional defense production act work, as well. , 80 flights average scheduled, 37 complete, 43 on the horizon. You can see the numbers of material that has been brought into supplement the volume that is needed. Through a series of slides of new york first. Birx provides me what i would call a geographic reference to a lima supply chain. All of those cities, you will see a theme, i will be talking a and geographics areas. I aligned the supply chain to those areas to try to get as while realizing the rest of the nation needs supplies, as well. We aligned the supply chain to the site of care, public hospitals, v. A. , private hospitals, nursing homes, first responders, acute care and on down the line. Business week, monday of last week through this pastturday of week, these are the amounts of materials that came in to the new yorknew jersey metro area, and you can see the lines there. If you go to detroit, we talked their hotspot. Here is the volume of deliveries going into detroit for that same timeframe. If you go to chicago, im going to run this run through this quick but you can see the geographic line, the places the dr. Birx has talked about is where we are concentrating supplies. If you go to new orleans, to give you an understanding, today was ad. C. , very early entry into, washington, d. C. , baltimore, positioning supplies ahead of need we hope in washington. Go to baltimore. The volumes there, trying to get ahead of that. Philadelphia is next. Is a nineext slide city roll up, so to save time i didnt include boston and houston. You can see the volume of material flowing through a commercial network, air bridge, into geographic regions, then further prioritized to the site of care. Topic, n95 masks. The department of defense announced a dpa action this weekend. That came over from dod on friday into the white house and was approved on saturday, the contract awarded today, 131 honeywell, and others. Beforees act was signed march was ended, towards the end. So essentially, two weeks from that money being put into title iii authority from dod, this action takes us from a baseline of what was being produced domestically of about 30 Million Masks upwards to, as we go through the fall and into the masks, 120 million domestically. So currently we are filling some of that demand from overseas sources. Additive masks here, through , lowerill ramp up dependence on overseas sources and that will essentially secure a big piece of the supply chain. Five companies, six cities. Exington, North Carolina andoygan falls, wisconsin aberdeen, north dakota. Increasinge production facilities, to have that ramp up. Thank you vice pres. Pence thank you, admiral. Is, for just the week ending april 11. We have distributed or directed the distribution of 5. 3 Million Masks, five point million 5. 1 million gloves. We share that mostly to make sure that Health Care Workers know that the resources are flowing. These are just the numbers for this week. They do not include what the president announced. I was able to tell Governor Tom Wolf that they will be receiving 2 million n95 masks. Toh that, we will be happy take a couple of questions. Wouldnt it be useful, if you are going through all of those supplies, we talked about foreign products catching up. Wouldnt it be useful if it hadnt taken until midmarch . Pentagon,up from the so i will speak from the 20th of march to now. You will see much more use of that as we go forward. Equipped to talk about other than that. I would like to ask a question to dr. Fauci. He said he would be giving the president your recommendations of a plan you are comfortable with. Andyou willing to come here tell the public what you have recommended to him and whether he followed through with what you recommended . Dr. Fauci what do you mean . When the president stands up here and outlines his plan, are you willing to stand up here after him and tell the American Public what it was that you recommended that he do . I have to think about that because when you have conversations with the president , sometimes they should really be confidential. That. Have to think about i can tell you one thing, he will listen, but i think what will happen is that he will get ofut from a number individuals, representing a number of s x. Number of aspects. I will give him advice based on evidence, my observation of what the best approach is. Just to go back to where we started today, some frustration with the reporting. Am sure that you know the next president that comes having watched this unfold, what do you think where the mistakes that were made early on that future president s could learn from . Dr. Fauci i do not want to use the word mistakes. Andhave to make decisions get input from a number of individuals. To have anything taken out of context. Say mistake. Could things have been done better . Of course. Nothing is perfect and you can always do better. What could have been done better . Comment oni cannot anything outside of my field. Was i think back on virus thathat was a was much worse than what i thought it would be, based on what we had learned early on. When it was first felt to be something that jumped from an animal to a human. It did not have much capability of going human to human and all of a sudden, you find out not only was it animal to human, but there was a lot of it. As you go back, he realized there were probably a lot of infections that, if we had delved into that a little more, we could have learned that it was affecting human to human and it was transmitting efficiently. I am not perfect. Maybe i should have tried 2002 that a little more about what was going on, but the mission was not as forthcoming as i would like. When you find out you are dealing with some thing that is. Ot only your Worst Nightmare a brandnew virus that has a high degree of transmissibility and a high degree of mortality. I should have been able to realize it earlier. Wasas an evolving that finally realized. This is really worse than we could have imagined. He met with Abbott Laboratories today. What did they say . Fauci vice pres. Pence talk about how to increase the number of cartridges. Rapidlyot only expanding testing across the country. You heard me and the doctor saying he had an entire team that will be working with governors in laboratories around the country to identify machines that already exist today that could be activated. We also went to work with Abbott Laboratories for the longerterm because if the current trend hope and i i literally pray that we will soon find ourselves on the downslope of coronavirus in this country. This epidemic will come to an end, but as we make decisions in the days ahead to reopen america , with the president is wanting the kind ofhave surveillance Testing Available around the country, so that cdc can do the immediate contact tracing, so we can deploy resources like the 15 minute test. We spoke to governor baker in massachusetts and Governor Hogan in maryland. We commend them for trying to stop the spread of covid in nursing homes. We need to manufacture those devices that they can be deployed. Rapidly continuing to expand testing today and the governor of louisiana told me they have tested in the highest per capita than any others date in the union. ,aking sure that Going Forward they will be infrastructure testing to deal with the coronavirus, should it return in the future. Let me all bid you all a good evening and we will be back tomorrow. I have a question about the cartridges. The federal government is in charge of distributing those. What is the timeline for when you will have that done . What is the timeline that you are working with . Vice pres. Pence let me let dr. Birx address that. Purchased Abbott Laboratories machines throughout the country. Amountquired a certain that we are immediately distributing across the states. Now they are producing around 50,000 per day. Withll also be working them to deploy those resources. We are working with those manufacturers to increase the production of cartridges. That was perfectly said bring it i just want to make sure that people understand. One third of them went specifically to Indian Health service and these states that have smaller epidemics. To the placesd where there is high disease. Only two thirds went that way, so that people could purchase them directly. One third went to the smaller states that really need these. We are trying to balance the entire testing framework, medium, low and throughput machines to get everyone the maximum stability, statebystate, based on what needs are at the moment. If there is an outbreak and you , he willo 5000 tests do it on the high throughput machine. We want to make sure everyone knows what everything is. We cannot everything has to be on the table for us to be able to dramatically increase testing. We went up by a lot in three weeks. It will need to be getting every piece of equipment on. Vice pres. Pence thank you all for your time and attention. We just want to encourage you. We will need the effort to expand testing across the country and provide supplies to our Health Care Workers. Last word, on behalf of the president and our entire task force, 30 days to slow the spread. We are almost at the Halfway Point. Ofnow it has been a month mitigation strategies, but i hope that as you look on and see the progress we have made, the beginnings of wheel progress in louisiana, detroit and elsewhere. I hope it will steal your resolve to continue to do your part to slow the spread because we will get through this, but it will take all of us to continue to do it. Thank you to the American People for all of your effort. See you tomorrow. Cspan has roundtheclock coverage to the response to the coronavirus pandemic. It is all available on demand. House briefings, updates from governors and state officials. Track the spread with interactive maps. Atch unfiltered cspan. Org coronavirus. Washington journal primetime. For the next hour, special edition of washington journal. Your questions and answers start now. Your questions for dr. Anthony fauci. He is the director of Infectious Diseases and the leading member of the White House Task force on coronavirus. We will begin with the doctor from alabama. Now recovered from covid19. Our phone lines are open. If you live in the ea