Bedminster new jersey. He commented on the coronavirus, the election, and talks on reaching an agreement on a new aid package. And gentlemen, the president of the United States, donald trump. I appreciate everybody being here. Number oftremendous things. I want to begin by giving an update on the economy. Economic health is vital to public health. Our strategy to kill the china virus is focused on protecting those at greatest younger andllowing healthy americans to safely return to work and safely return to school. Very important. We added 1. 8 million jobs in july and added a total of over 9. 3 million jobs ands may, and i will say the job growth we have seen over the last three months, 9. 3 million, is that single greatest three month period of job creation in american history. That is big news and great news. Over the past three months, the United States has surpassed Market Expectations by a total of 12 million new jobs. Over the last three months, the United States has added 623,000 manufacturing jobs. Andwould need a magic wand we are getting them in a disappearing. H is it is going to disappear and 639,000 brandnew construction jobs. Jobs are of new fulltime jobs and wages are up 4. 8 , which is terrific. Has lowered nearly 30 since april. Think of that, 30 since april. Hispanic unemployment has byreased 32 and jobs held africanamericans, hit especially hard by the shutdowns , increased by nearly one million over the past three months and that is also a record. That is a job record. African american, one million it is a job record. We must ensure the progress continues. My administration has enacted dollars inlion historic relief since china allow the virus to infect the world, so weve 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 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 extend it 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. We will go back to july 1, and it will go to the end of the payroll tax. At 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, and deferred student loan forgive 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. This afternoon, i spoke with president aoud of lebanon to inform him three large aircraft are on the way, fully loaded, fully loaded, with medical supplies, food, water and many other things. Lots of emergency equipment. Also, first responders, doctors and nurses are on their way. This was an event like the world has not seen in a long time. We will have a Conference Call on sunday with president macron leaders of lebanon and leaders from various parts of the world. Everyone wants to help. Spoke to a lot of people. They all want to help. The United States 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 number of families than anyone would have thought. And at first thought, but all of those families who lost loved ones, relatives, friends, in this horrible tragedy. We stand firmly with the people of lebanon and we will continue to offer our full support through this very difficult time. We have not seen anything like this in a long time. As you know, earlier this week, i met with American Workers at the Tennessee Valley authority, who had been laid off by the leadership at the Tennessee Valley 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 sort of semipublic, in a sense, gets paid the highest salary in the world of government. Gets 8 million a year. That is not a bad amount of money. Its 8 million a year. We are not accepting that, even 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 fellow american tech workers at the tba were being terminated from their positions on top of all of this, and on top of the 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. Hows that for a law . This was set up originally to create jobs and economic development. And now, they are getting fired and they are supposed to train people for who 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 fired 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. We just were informed that they have agreed to change course totally. Today, i am proud to announce a major victory for the workers of tennessee and kentucky and other areas that are covered, great states. Great states. That the leadership of the tva has canceled the layoffs and given hundreds of American Workers their jobs back. They are being rehired as we speak. In this administration, we live by two rules. Buy american and hire american. You cannot fire all our workers andhire workers from faraway parts of the world at lower prices, especially when they have to train the people and they can never train the people like what you have because they been there a long time. We love the tva. They love the Tennessee Valley tohority, and are so proud work for it, but it 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. A number of countries are seeing a surge in new cases, including japan, the philippines, major parts of europe. Cases continue to surgeon latin surge in latin america. Right now, it is the most infected place anywhere in the world. They more than doubled in recent days. Latin america is doing very little testing. They are not equipped to do that. Its tough. 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 had a very large country, very complex country in a sense. More than half of americas counties reported less than 20 cases last week. If you look at that, 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 percentage of emergency room cases with coronavirus symptoms is down to almost half what it was in july. The Southern States that were very strong hotspots not long ago, arizona, texas, florida, continued to show significant improvement, including increased availability of hospital beds. Arizona now 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. They are doing well and 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 decrease from 13 july 23 take percent this week. 8 this week. 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. Arizona has a rapid drop. New jersey and new york remain stable with less than 1 of emergency room visits due to the china virus, the illness took a devastating toll on both states, as you know. While both 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 is working very hard, both governors are working very hard. We are in touch with them, supplying them with a lot of supplies as needed, if needed, but they are needing very little right now. They are in good shape. We will continue to monitor the new cases throughout this crisis. My administration provided extraordinary support of people, equipment, medical supplies, to the people of new jersey, new york, and to people of every state. All of our states. 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 including boston and chicago as well as the midwest. We are watching the mall very carefully. It is vital all americans work all veryng them carefully. 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 very much 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, when you hear half of the deaths have been in Nursing Homes and longterm care facilities. I will tell you that i met with owners and representatives of Nursing Homes. They are very, 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 of Nursing Homes are working very hard. The federal government and private sector have delivered more than 9 million n95 masks, 3 27 million surgical 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. We are working very closely with him. We also provided nearly 5 billion to new jersey hospitals and health care facilities. And through the paycheck action Protection 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 that our opening right now, they are going to do well. They are there because of what we did with paycheck protection. On therapeutics and vaccines updates, three vaccine candidates have moved into phase three trials, years ahead of schedule. We have done wonders with the fda. I want to thank the fda and all of the great people there, dr. Hahn. We have phase three trials already going on, which most people would have said impossible to even think about. Today, pfizer announced it will create gileads drug remdesivir. Where we have had tremendous success. Last week alone, my administration 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 have had this disease and beat it, and there are a lot of people who have. If you can, go to a blood bank and donate. That would be a tremendous help. The United States is only 5 of the worlds population, but we have conducted over 25 of the worlds testing. Think of that. 5 , and we have given 5 of the worlds 25 of the worlds testing. 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 one of the reasons, we are doing a lot of testing, more than anyone else. Close to 65 million tests, where other countries have done very little testing. They will test people if they get sick. They will test people if they go 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 of the tests, the fiveminute minute to 15 minute result tests. Testing samples from multiple patients in one batch is also something we are very focused on doing, but in the not too distant future, so many tests will be a quick test. Five minutes to 15 minutes. We will not have to worry about the process of sending and receiving. 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. Over the next two weeks, i will be pursuing a major executive order requiring Health Insurance companies to cover all preexisting conditions for all customers. Thats a big thing. 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 properly taken care of. This follows a series of executive orders to lower drug prices and Prescription Drug prices. Significantly, we had the only year last year, where drug prices went down, in 51 years. We are talking about going down at a level nobody has even thought possible now, even though the Drug Companies are running very big ads on me. That is usually a reason, they are not too happy, but they have made a lot of money over the years. Prices just go up. Not fair. This includes a landmark executive order requiring companies to charge americans no more than they charge to 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 small or low price and we are paying many times that price in the United States because we pay for all of the research and development, promotion and other things, we will get what is called a favored nations clause, we are going to have and i signed a favored nations clause, so that the United States, which is the number purchaser of one drugs, by far, in the world. World. Purchaser in the not even close. Other countries that are bigger, if you look at india, china. Not too many. We have countries that are bigger, but not even close in terms of ordering drugs. We are the number one country in the world. We have a favored nation, so if somebody has a drug, in many cases it comes from a plant, the same plant. It is the same pill, same medicine or medication. Whatever the lowest country charges if germany charges . 10 for a pill and we charge two dollars, and i only use germany as an example, then we get that for . 10. So what can happen is that is going to go up a little bit and ours will come down a whole lot. I will tell you 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 could believe. Nobody talked about it. Everybody wondered, how come every president who runs for office says they will lower drug prices and never do . They go through the roof. Over the last administration, they went up, like skyrocketing. Skyrocketing. That is biden. Biden will not be able to do it. He has no clue. So what is happening is, we are going to be getting rid of all the subsidies 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. Nobody has had the courage to becausee it, to call it it is a very big step. But it is something that will drive drug prices down 50 , 60 , maybe 70 . We are talking about 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. Middlemen. I guess you would have to say to be politically correct, middlemen and middlewomen. But you never heard the middlewomen before. Hugh heard middlemen. That is the term. Say what you want about the Drug Companies, at least they produce a product, the medication. These people make billions and billions of dollars. I dont know who they are, but they are very rich. But they wont be so rich anymore. This executive order requires this 30 billion in discounts to go straight to the american patients. So 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 also keep fighting to end the Opioid Epidemic and we have done very well. Prior to the virus, we were down 18 and 19 and 20 . If you think about it, that means if you have 80 , that is not acceptable. The wall is going up. We have 276 miles of wall. It is having a tremendous impact on drugs coming into our country already. It will be finished toward the end of the year. It is at a it has had a very big impact. On portland, i would like to address that situation. Portland is a disaster. Its been a disaster for many, many years. Brave federal Law Enforcement officers singlehandedly saved the federal courthouse in portland from lawless rioters and agitators, and anarchists. That is what they are. You know, when you find molotov cocktails in somebodys knapsack and they say, im just here to have a good time these are really sick, disturbed people. The disgraced mayor of the city has ordered the police to stand down in the face of rioters, leaving his citizens at the mercy of this mob. He was at the mercy of the mob too. You saw him go out there the other day. It was terrible. He went out there, and they wanted to rip him apart. Fortunately, he had five people with him 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, tear it down, rip it down, posing an increasing threat to our country. We stop it. You have no idea how much we stop, but it is an ideology we have to stop. When you commit arson this is a quote from the mayor, hes come a long way, just made this quote when you commit arson with an accelerant in the 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. What you are seeing in portland is the radical lefts agenda in action. Portland is their roadmap for america. If the radical left gets in and joe biden as their 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 homeland security. Theyve done a fantastic job. We had our people go in. They stopped any intrusion into the courthouse. The courthouse was saved. And 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, just 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. Saw theall you all 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 we are not asked and if it continues, we will have to make a decision. But it is a very easy thing for us to do. We could stop it very quickly. Its been going on now for 76 days, but our buildings are very secure. If the democrats controlled washington, the democrats would pass, with all the things they do, legislation gutting 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. But in many cases, they want to completely defund the police department. No city, no town, no suburb would be safe. Your suburbs would be a disaster. Youries, your towns cities, your towns would be a disaster. They want every city to be a portland, to be a chicago . 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. All it is is horrible, horrible, incompetent management by politicians that truly do not know what they are doing. Just like we saved the courthouse, we will save the United States of america. A vast majority of people agree of me. A vast majority. Most people. They dont speak up as much as they could, but we know they are there and everyone else knows they are there too. With that, 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. It is always a lot of fun. Please, go ahead. You, go ahead. Reporter thank you, mr. President. I have a couple of questions on the negotiations on capitol hill. These executive orders you mentioned, do you have a timeline on when youre going to sign them . Pres. Trump it could be by the end of the week. They are being drawn by the lawyers right now. They work really nicely. It would be nice to be able to do it with the democrats. But they are really just 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 bad management. We cannot do that. They want to do that and we dont want to do that. Reporter are you concerned about 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. I was sued on a lot of things probably, we will get sued. People feel we can do it. Jeff, go ahead. Reporter the Intelligence Agency today said russia is already meddling in this years election to hurt joe biden 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 be, very much. Think the last person russia wants to see in office is donald trump because no one has been tougher on russia than i have ever. Look at what we have done to expose the pipeline with billions of dollars going to russia. Look at all the things we have done with nato. Weve raised 130 billion a year to countries countries that were delinquent are paying all of this money. 130 billion 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. You said another country, what was the third country . You didnt say iran. The reports said iran, also. Iran would love to see me not be president. I will say this. If and when we win, we will make deals with iran and north korea very quickly. Whatever happened to the word, north korea . You didnt see that, did you . 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. But they want to see, because they would much rather make a deal with biden, because if they make a deal with the United States 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 rebuilt our military, we became independent in terms of energy, we are the Energy Leader of the world. We were having the best year weve ever had. By the way, africanamerican, asianamerican, hispanicamerican unemployment numbers, the best in the history of our country. All things and many other groups, including women, high school diploma, 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. Just to follow up, 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 dont you start off with china . Dont you think china is a bigger threat . I think maybe it is. Youll 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. Because with the mailin ballots, called universal mailin ballots, 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. So i think one of the things we will have to look at is exactly that. That is a big problem. That is a big problem. He saw in new york, they called the winner, but they have no idea what the vote is. Go ahead. Reporter you saw these negotiations go on for weeks. 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. But in my opinion, they are just using it as an excuse you know, chuck shumer came out with a strong Statement Today that you have to get back into school, because it is good for the economy. He doesnt do it. He doesnt practice what he preaches. My people, steven mnuchin, our 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 gave them their chance, but they view it as election enhancement. You know, you 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. That is an influence and an unfair influence on an election. But we are going to win anyway. Please, go ahead. 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. You take a look at baltimore, 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 bad. All i am doing is we are finally having it out. Mr. 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 have it, justin. We have plenty of money. You said the pandemic is disappearing, but we have lost americans this week. [indiscernible] pres. Trump you are wrong. It is a political activity. 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 law says peaceful protest 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 report. Because that is the way they are. If the press in this country were honest and was not corrupt, 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] talks continue each wing congressional leaders and the white house on another coronavirus economic aid bill. The house stands in recess for august. They will hold pro forma sessions between now on labor day. In the senate, Mitch Mcconnell plans to remain in session until an agreement is reached. No votes are scheduled for when the Senate Returns monday at 3 00 p. M. Eastern. When a deal is announced, lawmakers will have 24 hours notice to return to the capital to vote. You can follow the house live on cspan, and the senate on cspan2. Next week, cspans the contenders looks at the lives of 14 men who ran for the presidency but lost and changed history. Atch on cspan starting on monday, 1844 president ial candidate, henry clay. Joe biden spoke to a officials about support for immigrant households, education initiatives and answering hate crime laws. This is from a conference of latino elected and appointed officials. Ce by video because of the coronavirus pandemic. Good to see you again. I want to say a special hi to my good friend secretary daily