Honor to have everybody here. I know the press was not quite expecting this, so i appreciate your being able to attend. We have a terrific number of things and positive things to tell you tonight. I want to give an update on the economy. Economic health is vital to public health. That is why our strategy to kill the china virus is focused on protecting those at greatest risk, while allowing younger and healthy americans to safely return to work and school, very important. 1. 8dded we added million jobs in july, exceeding the predictions, and in may. I will say the job growth we have seen over the last three thehs, 9. 3 million, is single best in u. S. History. That is big news and great news. Over the past three months, the u. S. Has surpassed Market Expectations by a total of 12 million new jobs. Over the last three months the u. S. Has added 623,000 manufacturing jobs. Remember, you would need a magic wand to get manufacturing jobs, and we are getting them even in a pandemic, which is disappearing. It will disappear. 000 brandnew construction jobs. Over half of the new jobs are fulltime and wages are up by 4. 8 , which is terrific. Unemployment has fallen by nearly 30 since april. Think of that, 30 since april. Hispanic american unemployment has decreased by 32 . Jobs held by africanamericans, that were hit especially hard by the shutdowns, incredibly hard, increased by nearly one million over the past three months. That is also a job record. Africanamericans it is a job record. That the progress continues. My administration has enacted over 3 trillion since china allowed the virus to infect the world. We contributed 3 trillion. My administration continues to work in good faith to reach an agreement with democrats in congress to extend protections against evictions. A terrible thing happens with evictions, not fair. It was not their fault we were infected from with this disease from china. And get relief to families. Tragically, nancy pelosi and Chuck Schumer continue to insist on radical leftwing policies that have nothing to do with the china virus. Nothing to do with it at all. So you have a virus that comes in, and you have people in congress that do not want to help our people. If democrats continue to hold this critical relief hostage, i will act under my authority as president to get americans the relief they need. What we are talking about is deferring the payroll tax for months until the end of the year and i can extended at a certain period. Hopefully i will be here to do the job. We have been doing the job like nobody could. Nobody would, actually. We are going to have the payroll tax go until the end of the year and it will be retroactive to july 1. Andill go back to july 1, payroll tax will go to the end of the year. It may be extended. We will enhance Unemployment Benefits through the end of the year. Unemployment benefits will be that is a big one, will be brought out to the end of the year. Loaneferred student payments and Deferred Interest until further notice. Students paying student loans, in many cases not allowed to go back into their colleges. Extend the eviction moratorium. We will be extending that so people are not evicted. It is not their fault. We had a lengthy discussion this morning with president macron of france concerning numerous subjects, but in particular, the catastrophic event which took place in beirut, lebanon. Horrible, horrible event. At 3 00 p. M. I spoke with of lebanon to inform him three large aircraft ,re on the way, fully loaded fully loaded, with medical supplies, food, water and many other things. Also, first responders, doctors and nurses are on their way. Event like the world has not seen in a long time. Have a Conference Call with president macron and leaders from various parts of the world. Everyone wants to help. A lot of people want to help. The u. S. Is with authorities on the ground right now in lebanon to identify further health and humanitarian needs and we will offer further assistance. We are working closely with their government and leaders. On behalf of the united states, i want to extend our condolences to all of the families. Much larger numbers of families than anyone would have thought. Who lostose families loved ones, relatives, friends, in this horrible tragedy. We stand firmly with the people of lebanon and offer our full support through this difficult time. We have not seen anything like this in a long time. As you know, earlier this week, i met with america work American Workers at the Tennessee Valley authority, who had been laid off by the authority. As you know, this is a form of utility that has been around a long time, since fdr. The head person, not controlled by government, but it is semipublic, gets paid the highest salary in the world of government. Gets 8 million a year. That is not a bad amount of money. 8 million a year. That, evenaccepting though we are not the ones that appoint him or her, in this case him. We are not accepting someone being paid 8 million a year. This has been going on many years. We will do something about that and are already in negotiations right now, including possible termination. They and hundreds of their fit fellow american tech workers at the tba were being terminated from their positions on top of theof this, and on top of 8 million salary and a chief of staff who makes much more than 1 million a year. On top of all that, they were terminated from their positions, these incredible people, in order to train the lower cost Foreign Workers imported to replace them. Originally top create jobs and economic development. Firedw they are getting and are supposed to train people for you get a much lower salary. It is crazy. This was a grave injustice. I fired the chairman of the board in response. On friday i fire the chairman of the board, along with one other board member. That is the one thing we have, the right to fire board members. I made it clear that if they did not swiftly reverse course, i would continue with these firings of the board members. Informed that they have agreed to change course totally. Announce aproud to major victory for the workers of tennessee and kentucky and other areas that are covered, great states. That the leadership of the tva has canceled the layoffs and given American Workers their jobs back. They are being rehired as we speak. Two rules, hire american. You cannot fire all our workers andhire workers from faraway parts of the world, especially when they have to train. They love the tva. A lot of people in the office the other day, a lot of media covering it. They love the Tennessee Valley authority. It, but it work for happened and it is a terrible thing. They will all be getting their jobs back. Nearly every nation on earth continues to combat the virus. Arenumber of countries seeing a surge in new cases, including japan, the philippines, major parts of europe. Cases continue to surgeon latin latina surge in america. They more than doubled in recent days. Latin america is doing very little testing, they are not equipped to do that. In the u. S. , more than 80 of jurisdictions report declining cases. We are doing very well. You do not hear that often from the media, but we are doing well. We have a large country, complex country. More than half of americas counties reported less than 20 cases last week. More than half of americas counties report fewer than 20 cases last week. We have to remain vigilant. We are doing very well, but we have to remain vigilant. Nationally, the amount of emergency room cases with coronavirus symptoms is down to almost half what it was in july. The Southern States that were strong hotspots not long ago, arizona, texas, florida, show significant improvement, including increased availability of hospital beds. Arizona has the smallest number of coronavirus inpatients since mid june. The governor was up and we had a great meeting, governor ducey. The meeting was terrific. Since mid june. It is heading down rapidly. Texas is stabilizing and improving rapidly with progress in the rio grande valley. Other communities along the border with mexico that had shown the biggest increases in hospitalizations and deaths. Florida is also stabilizing its statewide positive test rate. It continues to duke decrease from 13 . Florida has done very well. It is heading down quite rapidly. Even miami, which was the hottest spot in florida, is heading downward. But florida has done very well. Texas has done very well rapidly and arizona has done incredibly well. A rapid drop. New jersey and new york remain stable with less than 1 of emergency room visits due to the illness took ae devastating toll on both states. States really took the brunt of the infection earlier this year, thankfully, we have not seen a resurgence. They have been doing a good job, everybody working hard, both governors working hard. We are in touch with them, supplying them with a lot of supplies, if needed. They are needing very little right now. They are in good shape. We will continue to monitor the cases throughout this crisis. My administration provided extraordinary support of people, equipment, medical supplies, to the people of new jersey, new york, and every state. We are carefully monitoring californias Central Valley as well as san diego, los angeles, sacramento and san francisco, which are starting to stabilize and go down. We are carefully watching regions from increasing cases enclosing including boston and chicago as well as the midwest. It is vital all americans Work Together to protect the vulnerable. For this reason we have delivered vast amounts of protective equipment and testing supplies to Nursing Homes across america. We focus on the elderly, especially when they have heart problems or diabetes. Diabetes is a big problem. Approximately half of all deaths have occurred in Nursing Homes and longterm care facilities. That is an incredible number, half of all deaths have been in Nursing Homes and longterm care facilities. I met with owners and representatives of Nursing Homes. They are very vigilant. They are doing a very good job now. They have done something i think is special. They are doing very well in terms of the virus, working very hard, a lot of forces came together and hit the Nursing Homes very hard, but the representatives of Nursing Homes, and in some cases the ownership, are working very hard. The federal government and private sector have delivered more than 9 million n95 masks, 3 million face shields, 20 million gallons and 668 million gloves to new jersey alone. Think of that. We provided 3. 4 billion to the state of new jersey in emergency relief funding. We happen to be in new jersey right now, so those are great numbers. The governor is working very hard. Governor murphy is doing a good job. Nearly 5ovided billion to new jersey hospitals and health care facilities. And through the paycheck Action Program you know so well, we provided 23 billion to support more than 250,000 new jersey Small Businesses. A lot of the Small Businesses you see, they are there because of what we did with paycheck protection. Vaccineseutics and updates, three vaccine candidates have moved into phase three trials, years ahead of schedule. We have done wonders with the fda. Dr. T to thank the fda, hahn. We have phase three trials already going on, which most people would have said impossible to think about. Createannounced it will gileads drug remdesivir. We procured and distributed over 120,000 vials of remdesivir, enough to treat more than 19,000 patients. Plausible treatments continue to show incredibly encouraging results, really incredible what is going on. If you can go to a blood bank if you can go to this get through this disease and beat it, go to a blood bank and donate. That would be a tremendous help. The u. S. Is only 5 of the worlds population, but we have conducted over 25 of the worlds testing. Think of that. Any Global Analysis of confirmed cases must really take this into account because we are constantly showing cases, cases, cases are up. The reason cases are up, we are doing a lot of testing, more than anyone else. Tests, whereillion other countries have done very little testing. They test people if they get sick, going to the hospital. We are doing tremendous testing and especially at the Nursing Homes. Over the last week the testing turnaround times have declined significantly as major commercial labs have begun to pull samples. We have been able to send out many more tests, the fiveminute minute to 15 minute result tests. Testing samples from multiple isients in one batch something we are focusing on the on in the not so distant future. If you figure it takes a day to send and receive and a day at the laboratory, that is three days right there. The other tests you can have in five to 15 minutes. I will pursue a major executive order requiring Health Insurance companies to require all preexisting conditions for all customers. I have always been very strongly in favor, we have to cover preexisting conditions. We will be pursuing a major executive order requiring Health Insurance companies to cover all preexisting conditions for all of its customers. This has never been done before, but it is time the people of our country are properly represented and taken care of. This follows a series of executive orders to lower drug prices and Prescription Drug prices. Significantly, we have the only year, where drug prices went down, in 51 years. We are talking about going down to a level nobody thought drugble, even though the companies are running very big ads. That is usually a reason they are not too happy, but they have made a lot of money over the years. The prices go up, it is not fair. This includes a landmark executive order requiring americansto charge know more than they charge. Foreign countries they have to charge americans no more than they charge foreign countries. That means our country cannot be charged more. If germany gets drugs at a very low price and we are paying many times that price in the u. S. Because we pay for all of the research and development, promotion and other things, we will get what is called a so thatnations clause, the u. S. , the number one purchaser of drugs, by far, in the world. We have other countries that are bigger, if you look at india, china. We have countries that are bigger, but not enclosed not even close in terms of ordering drugs. We are the number one country in the world. Drug, in manys a cases it comes from a plant, the same plant. Same the same pill, medicine or medication. Whatever the lowest country charges if germany charges . 10 and we charge two dollars, and i only use germany as an example, then we get that for . 10. S will go up a little bit and hours will come down a whole lot. Big pharma is not happy. For too long we have been forced to subsidize cheaper drug prices and Foreign Companies countries, to a level nobody believed. Comebody wondered, how every president says they will lower drug prices and never do . Over the last administration they were skyrocketing. That is biden. Biden will not be able to do it. He has no clue. We will behappening, working to get rid of all the subsidy to foreign lands and we will give essentially all of the benefits that frankly they have as great negotiators, those benefits will go to our people. It is called a favored nations clause. You can look it up and see. No one is had the courage to institute it because it is a very big step. But it is something that will 50 , drug prices down maybe 70 . Numbers that are unbelievable. I also signed an executive order stopping middlemen from taking advantage of medicare patients by charging higher prices to them and pocketing the discount for themselves. These are some of the richest people in the world. Everyone talked about middlemen. I have heard of them for years on Prescription Drug prices. To be politically correct, middlemen and middlewomen. Say what you want about the drug companies, at least they produce medication. He these people make billions and billions of dollars. They wont be so rich anymore. This executive order requires this 30 billion in discounts to go straight to the american patients. The middlemen will be knocked out and i will lose a lot of friends, even though i have no idea who these people are. On opioids i am pleased to announce my administration invested an additional 100 million to fight Opioid Crisis in rural america. In the midst of the china virus pandemic, we are fighting to end the Opioid Epidemic and we have done very well. We were downvirus 20 . That means if you have 80 , that is not acceptable. The wall is going up. We have 276 miles of wall. It has it will be finished toward the end of the year. On portland, i would like to address that situation. Portland is a disaster. Its been a disaster for many, many years. Law enforcement officers singlehandedly saved the federal courthouse in portland from lawless rioters and agitators, and anarchists. That is what they are. When you find molotov cocktails in somebodys knapsack and they say, i am just here to have a good time, these are really sick, disturbed people. This disgraced mayor of the city has ordered the police to stand down in the face of rioters ving his citizens at the rioters, leaving his citizens at the mercy of this mob. He went out there, and they wanted to rip him apart. Him,d five people with fortunately, who called security. Mayor wheeler has abdicated his duty and surrendered his city to the mob. As a result, the mob has dissented upon the Police Precinct and tried to burn it down, rep. Dent , rip it down, posing an increasing threat to our country. We stopped it. It is an ideology we have to stop. , this is ammit arson quote from the mayor, hes come a long way, when you commit in theith an accelerant attempt to burn down a building, that is occupied by people who have intentionally been trapped inside, you are not a demonstrator or you are not demonstrating, youre attempting to commit murder. Thats come along way. Hes come a long way when he made that statement. Seeing inre portland is the radical is the agenda in action. Portland is the roadmap for america is the radical left gets is theire biden puppet. But if the radical left gets in, they look at portland as a thing that they want. Thats what they want. Why . Who knows . Doesnt matter. It is a different thinking. But its a mess. I want to thank all of security. Theyve done a fantastic job. We had our people go in. They stopped any intrusion into the courthouse. The courthouse was saved. Other federal buildings were saved. And we would like to be asked by the mayor and the governor, we will go in to stop the problems in portland and 24 hours, like we did in minneapolis after they really hurt that city. But the National Guard went and did a phenomenal job. It was over in three hours. After watching six days of horror, it ended in three hours. We all saw the scene of them walking right down the street. It was actually an unfortunate view, but an incredible view of how to do things. So we would be able to solve the portland situation immediately, but we are supposed to be asked. If it continues, we will have to make a decision. It is a very easy thing for us to do. Its been going on now for 76 days. But our buildings are very secure. If the democrats controlled washington, the democrats would things theyll the do, legislation cutting every Single Police department in america. They truly do, many of these people want to defund the police department. At the minimum, they will stop money from going to the police department. In many cases, they want to completely defund the police department. No city, no town, no suburb would be safe. The suburbs would be a disaster, your cities and towns would be a disaster. We want every city to be a portland, to be a chicago . Were waiting for them to pu we are waiting for them, the governor, the mayor. Nationwide, numbers are good despite the chicagos and the portlands and the new yorks. 348 increase in the last number of months in new york. Nobody has seen anything like that. To me, it is so sad, because i love new york. It is so sad. Audit is all it is is horrible, incompetent management by politicians that truly do not know what they are doing. Just like we say at the courthouse, we will save just like wesaved the courthouse, we will save the united its of america. United states of america. A vast majority of people agree of me. I will take a few questions from the media. They have been here for a long time. They have been waiting of it for a long time. They wait for these moments. So it is a lot of fun. Please, go ahead. Go ahead. Have a couple of questions on the negotiations on capitol hill. His executive orders you mentioned, you have a timeline on when youre going to fund this . Pres. Trump it could be by the end of the week. They are being drawn right now. They work really nicely. It would be nice to be able to do it with the democrats. They are interested in one thing, that is protecting people that have not done a good job in managing cities and states. Nothing to do with covid, nothing to do with or little to do. They want to be able to make up for many years, in some cases, decades of ad management. That is what they want to do. We dont want to do that. Can you confirm the legality of these orders . Pres. Trump not at all. Everything you do, you get sued. I was sued on the travel ban, and we won. We will say. Probably, we will get sued. People feel we can do it. Jeff, go ahead. The Intelligence Agency today said russia is already meddling in this years election. And that china is considering meddling to hurt you. Do you believe that intelligence, what do you plan to do about it . Pres. Trump it could become a very much. It could become a very much. I am the last president russia wants to see an office. It could be, very much. I am the last president russia wants to see in office. Look at what we exposed with the pipeline, billions of dollars going to russia. Look at all the things we have done with nato. Countries that were delinquent are paying all of this money. Goes to 400 billion over a few years. That is all money to protect against russia. China would love us to have an election where donald trump lost to sleepy joe biden. They would own our country. If joe biden was president , china would own our country. We set another country, what was the third country . Iran. Dnt say the reports that iran come also. Iran would love to see me not the president the reports said iran, also. Iran would love to see me not be president. We will make deals with iran and north korea very quickly. Whatever happened to the word north korea . If i didnt win the election in 2016, our country would now be in war with north korea. Everybody said trump will get us in war. Just the opposite. We actually have a relationship with north korea, which is something that was never established by the previous administration. You would have been at war with north korea. It would have been a very bad war. North korea, whether you look at iran, every one of them will make a deal with us very quickly. Iran is dying to make a deal. They would much rather make a deal with biden, because if they make a deal with the u. S. , if china makes a deal with the u. S. , with biden in charge, they would own our country. Look what i have done. I have taken tens of billions of dollars from china. China was having the worst year they have had in 67 years, and we were having the best year we have ever had, with big tax cuts, big regulation cuts, we have rebuild our military, we became independent in terms of energy, with the Energy Leader we are the Energy Leader of the world. Africanamerican, asian american, hispanic american unemployment members, the best in the history of our country. All things many other groups, including women, high school diplomas, no high school diploma, college diploma, everybody was doing better. The last thing that russia wants and china wants and iran wants would be for donald trump to win. What do you plan to do about that interference . Pres. Trump well, we are going to look at it very closely. You tell me this came out a little while ago. I have heard it came out just a little while ago. We are going to look at that very closely. You started off with russia. Why do you start off with china . Dont you think china is a bigger threat . I think maybe it is. Maybe you have to figure it out. We have to watch all of them. We have to be very careful. The biggest risk we have is mailin ballots. Ballots,ersal mailin it is a much easier thing for a foreign power, whether it is russia, china, iran, north korea, many others, people, countries you would not expect, it is much easier for them to forge ballots and send them in. It is much easier for them to cheat with universal mailin ballots. One of the things we will have to look at is exactly that. That is a big problem. That is a big problem. New york called the winner, but they have no idea what the vote is. Go ahead. Do you think if you had been more directly involved, we would be in a different position . Pres. Trump they call me all the time. They tell me how they are doing with nancy and chuck. They are just using it as excuses. Chuck shumer came out with a strong Statement Today that you have to get back into school, because it is good for the economy. But he doesnt practice what he preaches. , ourople, Steven Mnuchin wonderful chief of staff, mark meadows, they are constantly on the phone with me. I am totally involved with it. We are going to do it in a way that is just much easier. We are giving them their chance. Talk about foreign countries, cheating on the election, while the democrats are cheating on the election. That is exactly what they are doing, if you look at what they are doing even with these negotiations. Influence and an unfair influence on an election. But we are going to win anyway. Why havent you spoken to speaker pelosi, though . Pres. Trump we will see what happens. Right now, they are not ready. I dont think they care about people. I think they care about their politicians. They have done a terrible job running the cities in the states. Democrats cities and states. At baltimore,k you take a look at some many different cities, including the ones ive already mentioned, take a look at whats going on they want lots of money to keep it going, for many years, they have been bed. All i am doing is we are finally having it out. President , where are you going to get the money to pay for Unemployment Insurance without congress . Will people still get 600 a week . Pres. Trump we have the money. I wont say that yet. You will see that when it happens. We havent, just in we have it, justin. We have plenty of money. Said the pandemic is 60appearing, but we lost americans this week. [indiscernible] you are run. It is a political activity. To have exceptions. You are wrong. They have exceptions. It is a protest. And as you know [cheering and applause] to me, it looks like they all have masks on. You have an exclusion. The losses peaceful protest for political activity. Protestaw says peaceful for political activity. You can call it political activity, but i call it peaceful protest. They heard you were coming up, and they know the news is fake, they understand it better than anybody. [cheering and applause] whether or not the question about russia, he doesnt mention iran was in the road work. Was in the report. Because that is the way they are. If the press in this country were honest and was not corrupt him a fake, our country would be so much further ahead. Fake, our country would be so much further ahead. [cheering and applause] thank you so much. Thank you. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] announcer cspans washington journal, every day, taking your calls live on the air on the news of the day, discussing policy issues that impact you. Coming up saturday morning, we discussed the july unemployment numbers with kimberly adams. Goldstein will be with us to talk about the role in history of Vice President show candidates. And the executive director and cofounder of the National IndependentVenue Association talks about the Economic Impact of coronavirus on independent music venues. Watch cspans washington journal live at 7 00 eastern saturday morning. Be sure to join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, texts, and tweets. Next, a look at alexa and security measures leading up to the 2020 election. Is on theg focus spread of this information, the role of the u. S. Postal service, and options for modernizing the voting process with saint able to registration and expanded polling locations